Friday’s announcement that India’s economic growth had contracted to 4.5% in the July-September quarter set off a swarm of recrimination. As the figures showed the slowest growth rate in more than six years and the sixth straight quarter of slowdown, the Congress accused the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of pushing the economy into a coma.

The dismal numbers coupled with Sitharaman’s statement in Parliament on Wednesday that there was no recession was like saying the “patient has been saved, but patient is in an unending coma”, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a press conference on Friday evening.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also alarmed. “There is no one today that can deny the sharp slowdown in India’s economy and its disastrous consequences, particularly for farmers, youth and the poor,” he said.

BJP member Subramanian Swamy joined the chorus to attack Sitharaman’s statement. The finance minister “doesn’t know any economics”, he told HuffPo.

Seemingly resigned to the situation, some Twitter users found humour in the downturn. One user, creative consultant Anand Jeyaraman, was especially hilarious.

There were other wry observations too.

The cartoonists weren’t far behind.