What is this poverty?: Finance minister mocks Rahul’s 2013 ‘state of mind’ remark

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speaks in Rajya Sabha on Friday. Pic/ANI

Faced with criticism for her latest Budget not doing enough for the poor, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday mocked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 2013 comment of poverty being a state of mind, and asked if this is the poverty she was supposed to address.

Replying to the discussion on Budget 2022-23 in the Rajya Sabha, she said her Budget brings stability to the economy and has measures to create jobs. Without naming Gandhi, she referred to the Congress leader's remarks on poverty to counter the criticism from Opposition leaders, including former finance minister P Chidambaram of the Budget leaving out the poor.

"Please be clear, is this the poverty that you wanted me to address, the poverty of mind?" she said. As Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi protested that she was mocking the poor, Sitharaman said, "I am not mocking the poor people. The person who had mocked the poor people, you are in alliance with his party."

"What is the poor that you are talking about?," she asked. "Your former [Congress] president said poverty does not mean scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome it. He said it's a state of mind. I've not named the person but we know who it is."

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