By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 7, 2017: Three years of NDA government under Narendra Modi has brought revolutionary changes in the country with overwhelming economic progress of the poor and downtrodden, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, Amit Shah said on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference here, Shah said, the dip in GDP growth to 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year is “temporary” and not linked to demonetisation.

“The demonetisation has not had any negative impact (on economic growth). ‘Notebandi’ cannot be reason for GDP coming down to 5.7 per cent from 7.1 per cent,” Shah clarified.

“So many quarters have passed since demonetisation. If it was for ‘notebandi’, the GDP would have fallen on that quarter when demonetisation was announced (October to December 2016),”

He said that this fall in GDP was “temporary” and due to “technical reasons”.

“The GDP growth came down because a lot of traders cleared their stocks in advance in order to get input tax credit. This is a technical reason and you will see normal growth from the next quarter itself,” he said.

Referring to a host of measures taken by Modi-led government, Shah claimed that India has now left its mark globally. “Be it grounding of Goods and Services Tax, Surgical strike, banking for all, sanitation etc, the present government has taken bold step and lifted the country which suffered from policy paralysis under the UPA government.

Shah is on a three-day visit to Odisha to galvanise the party workers for the 2019 assembly polls.