The Congress on Monday accused the Union government of “scaling new heights of intellectual dishonesty” with its “fraudulent” analysis of World Bank data to claim that India is among the world’s most equal countries.

“By doctoring data, the [Narendra] Modi government cannot simply wish away the stark reality of what is staring us in the face: growing and deepening inequalities, driven by its mindset and policies,” Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said on X.

His remarks came after a Press Information Bureau release published on Saturday cited data from the World Bank to claim that India ranked fourth globally in income equality with a Gini Index of 25.5.

The Gini Index is used to measure income inequality. It ranges in value from 0 to 100, with a score of 0 indicating perfect equality in a country and a score of 100 signifying maximum inequality where wealth is concentrated in fewer hands. The higher the Gini Index, the more unequal the country.

The PIB release claimed that extreme poverty had dropped in India to 2.3% in 2022-’23. “171 million Indians moved out of extreme poverty between 2011–23,” it added.

This interpretation has been criticised as being flawed, as the PIB compared India’s consumption-based Gini Index with the income-based figures of other countries.

Consumption inequality refers to the disparity in spending or consumption levels among individuals or households within a society. It is generally lower than income inequality in most countries because those with higher incomes tend to save more. As a result, consumption data, though still unequal, tends to appear more balanced than income data.

On Monday, Ramesh said that when World Bank released its report for India in April, the Congress had identified “warning signs” about poverty and inequality flagged in the report, including that government data was underestimating inequality.

Three months after its release, the “Modi government’s drumbeaters and cheerleaders in the ‘Press (mis)Information Bureau’ issued a press release…making the ‘staggeringly out-of-touch’ claim that India is among the world’s most equal societies,” added the Rajya Sabha MP.

He alleged that the Union government was not only “negligent” in its analysis of the World Bank report, but that it was also “outright intellectually dishonest”.

“India is not the 4th most equal society, it is actually the 40th most unequal society in the world,” said Ramesh.

He added: “Such fraudulent analysis, being published through the auspices of the PIB, reveals one of two things: a disturbing lack of talent in this government, or an equally disturbing lack of intellectual integrity.”

Ramesh also demanded that the PIB issue a clarification on the origins of the press release and retract it immediately.

There has been a “dangerous trend of such random ad-hoc statements and declarations” coming from the Union government, Ramesh said.

“In May 2025, we saw a similar flurry of incoherent and diverging statements from NITI Aayog officials on the size of the Indian economy,” he claimed. “The political leadership’s penchant for distortion and propaganda has clearly trickled down to officials as well.”