Jobs, security & bringing justice to farmers are priority for us, says Congress leader P Chidambaram

Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday said that jobs, security and bringing justice to farmers are the priority for us.

In an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan, Chidambaram said, "If you go to the villages and talk to the villagers, their concerns are jobs, debt and security. If you stand on a stage, which is 25 feet high and the nearest human being away from you is 50 metres away, you don't understand the reality on the ground and you can talk about anything in the air. We are talking about issues that deeply affect the people every day."

On GDP data he said, "The government changed the base year, which is not unusual. The government changed the methodology which was questioned. Now, we find that the government has been using bogus data. The MCA21 replaced the Reserve Bank of India data and we have always questioned if we are using MCA21, why don't you put it out in the public domain? Make that data available to researchers, scholars and economists to find out whether the data is reliable. The government kept the data away from the public domain."