Fact Check: BJP overlooks India's negative GDP estimates for 2020, falsely claims 8% growth

Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) posted a graphic on India's gross domestic product estimates for 2020 that was released on 26 January by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, this graphic falsely shows India growing at 8 per cent.

Below is a screenshot of the graphic with the wrong information.

Click here and here to view the post by BJP on Twitter and Facebook.

Fact Check:

NewsMeter checked the official site of the IMF and found that India's growth is not a positive 8 per cent but a negative 8 per cent.

On 28 January, the BJP deleted this graphic from its social media pages and updated it with the correct number - which is -8%.

The IMF has projected growth rate of 11.5% for India in 2021, the only major economy to register a double-digit growth this year.

The projection is a testament of India's robust economic recovery after the unprecedented slowdown the world faced last year due to COVID pandemic. pic.twitter.com/ZjwQCid1ux

— BJP (@BJP4India) January 28, 2021

This is not the first time that the BJP has made such an error. Last August, it had tweeted that India's 1.9 per cent growth estimate for 2020 is the highest economic growth among many other countries amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. NewsMeter debunked this false news too and reported that the information was old data. Click here to read the same.

It is clear that BJP's tweet contains an error and that India's growth estimate is negative 8 per cent.