Senior Congress leaders on Wednesday welcomed former finance minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha’s criticism of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for the present state of the Indian economy.

Mincing no words, Sinha wrote in an op-ed published in The Indian Express, stating that he would be “failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister has made of the economy”.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the party is happy that Sinha has brought up these faults. At a press conference, he said: “The Congress has, for nearly 18 months, highlighted these very grave weaknesses in the economy. We were told, in effect, to shut up.”

He also urged everyone, especially those who know about the Indian economy, to write and speak without fear.

Earlier in the day, he had tweeted, “Yashwant Sinha speaks truth to power. Will power now admit the truth that economy is sinking?” Pointing out that Sinha’s op-ed had a lot of truths, he added, “No matter what power does, ultimately truth will prevail”.

In response to Yashwant Sinha’s article, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal defended the government and claimed that India had been the “world’s fastest growing economy for three years in a row”.

He said the “landmark reforms” the government had brought in were unprecedented. “Something like the GST was never imagined to be possible in a country of the size and scale of India,” he told ANI.

Earlier in the day, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, in a tweet laden with sarcasm, said people should brace themselves as the “wings have fallen off our plane [of economy]”.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also shared the article on the microblogging site and said it was “hard hitting”.

Claiming his views were shared by many within the BJP who might be afraid to speak out, Sinha had said that Jaitley had wasted a golden opportunity and instead steered the Indian economy into crisis. Despite low global oil prices, Jaitley had failed to use the extra finances at his disposal to revive the economy, Sinha said.

Sinha said that three years after Jaitley became the finance minister, “private investment has shrunk as never before in two decades, industrial production has all but collapsed and that agriculture is in distress.” He said the construction industry, a big employer of the work force, is in the doldrums, and that the rest of the service sector is also in the slow lane and that exports have dwindled.

Sinha added that demonetisation had proved to be “an unmitigated economic disaster”, and that the poor implementation of the Goods and Services Tax had sunk many businesses.