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Ever since he was removed from the Finance Ministry amid questions over his performance, Subhash Chandra Garg has turned into a full-time doomsayer on the Indian economy. His latest half-baked “2.6% growth” analysis is yet another reminder of why his economic assessments deserve to be taken with a large pinch of salt. First, a basic lesson in reading GDP data: 7.8% is real growth. Inflation has already been removed. Official nominal GDP grew 10.3%, from ₹80.00 lakh crore to ₹88.27 lakh crore, while real GDP grew 7.8%. Subtracting 5–6% CPI inflation from an already inflation-adjusted figure is double-deflation, an elementary error that should embarrass a first-year economics student, let alone a former finance secretary. CPI is not even the GDP deflator. (https://t.co/yyRTLcujeP) Second, the “base was quietly downgraded” allegation is fraudulent comparison. The earlier 7.8% belonged to the old GDP series; 6.9% belongs to the rebased 2022–23 series. In fact, the latest new-series revision increased Q1 FY26 growth from 6.8% to 6.9%. Revisions occur both upward and downward as fresh data arrive. That is standard benchmark-indicator methodology followed internationally, not a conspiracy invented in Garg’s imagination. Third, he has even read the “discrepancy” backwards. The constant-price discrepancy changed from positive ₹1.37 lakh crore last year to negative ₹1.06 lakh crore this year. It reduced the latest GDP figure. Excluding discrepancies, expenditure components grew approximately 11.2%, not 2.6%. His supposedly devastating argument collapses upon reading the actual table. And where exactly is Garg’s imaginary 2.6% collapse visible? * Listed-company profits rose 16%, while revenue grew 18.4%, the fastest in 15 quarters. * Passenger-vehicle dispatches rose 34.3%; actual retail sales rose 19.1% to their best-ever July level. * Tractor retail sales jumped 28.1%, another July record. * Gross FDI reached a 15-year high of $30.7 billion. * Non-food credit grew 18.3% in June, the strongest Q1 reading since 2012, and accelerated to 19.1% in July. * Coal India’s supplies rose 18.38% to its highest-ever July offtake. * Merchandise exports jumped 19.6% to a record $44.24 billion. * July IIP grew 6.7%, manufacturing 7.3% and capital goods 16.1%. * Forex reserves reached an all-time high of $729.33 billion. No single indicator calculates GDP. But this broad expansion across production, investment, credit, consumption, exports and corporate performance completely demolishes Garg’s fantasy of an economy growing at only 2.6%. India has genuine challenges. Those should be debated honestly. But unemployment slogans and political bitterness cannot replace national-accounting methodology. Garg has exposed his own inability to read comparable data and demonstrated the same half-baked incompetence that got him out of the Finance Ministry. The only fictional number here is Garg’s 2.6%.