New Delhi:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman – facing flak for a budget critics and opposition leaders say has ignored the poorer sections of the country – took a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book and fought back by targeting Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in her speech to the Rajya Sabha.
Ms Sitharaman dug out a 2013 comment – Mr Gandhi had called poverty a “state of mind”, saying “… does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things” and “… if one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty” – to criticise the Congress leader.
“Your former president said, ‘Poverty does not mean scarcity of food, money, or material things. If one possesses self-confidence one can overcome it’. He also said, ‘It’s a state of mind’. I am not naming the person but we know who it is,” Ms Sitharaman said.
