Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday claimed that small and medium enterprises in India have been destroyed, large companies are under severe stress, and banks are in distress. In a fresh attack on the Centre, Gandhi said that the Bharatiya Janata Party had ridiculed him months ago for predicting economic catastrophe.

“Small and medium enterprises stand destroyed,” Gandhi tweeted, attaching a news report that said that the top 500 debt-heavy private firms might incur additional non-performing assets worth Rs 1.67 lakh crore in the 2021-’22 financial year. “Large companies are under severe stress. Banks are in distress. I stated months ago that an economic tsunami was coming and was ridiculed by BJP and the media for warning the country about the truth.

Gandhi has over the past month frequently targeted the Centre, criticising its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, and the diplomatic tensions with China. On Tuesday, Gandhi claimed that “millions of families” will be destroyed due to the economic mismanagement by the Centre. He made the remark a day after the Ministry of Finance projected that the Indian economy will grow at minus 4.5% in 2020-’21, thanks to the economic loss caused by the lockdowns imposed to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, he claimed that in the future, Harvard Business School will have case studies on failures of the Narendra Modi-led government, such as its handling of the coronavirus crisis, demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.

On July 2, the Congress leader lashed out at the Centre for its invitation to private firms to manufacture and run passenger trains. In a tweet in Hindi, Gandhi claimed that the people of India will not forgive the government for this move.

Last month, Gandhi had labelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi “Surrender Modi”, claiming that he had surrendered to China following a clash between troops of the two countries in Ladakh, in which 20 Indian soldiers died and 76 were wounded. This came after Modi said in a meeting with Opposition leaders that Chinese troops never entered Indian territory during the clash.

The Congress leader had also used a statistic showing that Chinese imports to India increased after the Narendra Modi-led government came to power in 2014. His comments came a day after the government banned 59 mobile applications, mostly popular Chinese apps like TikTok, WeChat, Cam Scanner, citing threat to national security and sovereignty.