New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) unexpected rout in the Delhi assembly elections will not slow the pace of economic reforms, finance minister Arun Jaitley said ahead of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s first full-year budget on 28 February, calming investors’ fears that the party’s first electoral setback after it came to power in May would derail the reforms programme.

“The government is determined to go ahead on the path of economic reforms. We believe the kind of reforms we are undertaking will bring in investments, generate jobs, improve the quality of life of people, and also help us in alleviating poverty levels," Jaitley told reporters along with the US treasury secretary Jacob J. Lew after the fifth economic and financial partnership dialogue between the two countries. “Because four (state) elections have been won and one has not been won is absolutely no ground for believing that there will be any slowdown."

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which promised to battle corruption and cut prices of electricity and water in the national capital, won 67 out the 70 assembly seats, handing an embarrassing defeat to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the party’s star campaigner. BJP’s Delhi debacle, where it managed to get only three seats, puts the brakes on a string of state election wins in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana since it swept to power at the centre in May.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the fourth state where elections were held, BJP won 25 of 87 seats, its best showing ever.

Jaitley said India seems to have emerged from the economic challenges of the last few years and is now in a position to take off at a much faster pace.

India and the US discussed the global economic situation and the state of the economy in both the countries, Jaitley said.

“There were several sectors on which we had a detailed discussion with our delegations, including the financial sector, taxation and banking, terror financing and money laundering, (and) cooperation that is required to check the menace (of the two). There was also discussion about India becoming a member of FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), which will lead to an automatic exchange of information between the two countries."

Later, in a joint statement released by the finance ministry, both sides said they noted the need for an early conclusion of reciprocal arrangement on FATCA and are looking forward to working for an early adoption of the new global standards on automatic exchange of information on a fully reciprocal basis for getting information about unaccounted money hoarded in offshore jurisdictions and tax havens.

Jaitley said the government has great interest in attracting global investment to India. “This investment is targeted particularly at infrastructure sector. Also we need a lot of investment as far as manufacturing is concerned," he added.

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