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BJP MP Nishikant Dubey dismissed the need for measuring GDP or its growth in India (video above, beginning at the 3-minute, 15-second mark). Economic growth fell to 4.5% in the July-September 2019 quarter – the lowest in six years. Dubey was speaking in the Lok Sabha during the debate on the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

“GDP was introduced in India in 1934...we should not make it a gospel like the Bible or the Mahabharata,” he said.

In an attempt to substantiate his argument, he read out a quote on GDP which he first attributed to former US President Franklin Roosevelt and then to “President” Kennedy, the latter turning out to be Robert F Kennedy and not John F Kennedy. “Sustainable economic development is more important than GDP,” Dubey added.

This is not the first time that Dubey has been recorded issuing strange statements. In October 2019, he had asked voters in Jharkhand to “support candidates of his party even if they are criminals”. After the famous Rahul Gandhi-Narendra Modi hug in the Parliament in 2018, Dubey had declared, “Our wives will divorce us if we hug Rahul Gandhi.”