Part of Partho-Arnab WhatsApp chats deal with economy

Arvind Subramanian did flag grave concerns on the economy. So did Kaushik Basu and several others.

The dire remarks fell on deaf ears in the Narendra Modi government. Understandably, because Subramanian, Basu and the others are economists — a source of mistrust for a regime sceptical of domain expertise.

Now, possible evidence has emerged that a non-economist whose credentials and intentions the Modi government trusts was privy to a blunt insight, shorn of tiresome jargon, on the economy as far back as April 2019.

The purported WhatsApp chats — attached to a supplementary chargesheet filed by Mumbai police — between Republic TV managing director Arnab Goswami and Partho Dasgupta, the then CEO of rating agency BARC, have a segment that deals with the economy, so to speak.