Abhijit-backed NYAY was voted out: Goyal

Pune, October 18

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday dubbed Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee as “Left-leaning”, and said his suggestion of basic income scheme was rejected by Indian voters. Therefore, there was no need to “accept what he thinks”.

Indian-American Banerjee, who won the 2019 Nobel for economics, had endorsed NYAY, the minimum basic income scheme promised by the Congress during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “I congratulate Abhijit Banerjee for winning the Nobel Prize. You all know that his thinking is totally Left-leaning,” Goyal said at a media briefing here. 

“Banerjee supported ‘NYAY’ and the people of India rejected his ideology,” Goyal said. “It is a matter of pride that an Indian won the Nobel Prize. But it is not necessary to agree with what he says and especially when the people of this country rejected his suggestion, there is no need to accept what he thinks,” the Union Minister observed. 

Banerjee had recently said the Indian economy was on a shaky ground and the data currently available did not hold any assurance for economic revival anytime soon. 

Asked about RBI’s Rs 1.76 lakh crore surplus transfer to the Central Government, Goyal said it was not the government which took the money. — PTI