After Piyush Goyal, Another BJP Leader Trains Guns at Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee, Asks Is Foreign Wife Criterion for Nobel Prize?

The BJP leader made the comment in an apparent reference to the Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, who won the prestigious award jointly with his second wife Esther Duflo - a French-American economist

Updated: October 19, 2019 12:07 PM IST

By India.com News Desk | Edited by Surabhi Shaurya

Abhijit Banerjee
Banerjee is currently a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

New Delhi: Hours after Union Minister Piyush Goyal targeted Abhijit Banerjee, another BJP leader has trained his guns at the Nobel laureate. Reacting to Goyal’s comment that ‘Banerjee’s thinking was left-leaning’ and his ‘ideology was rejected by Indians’, Sinha, BJP’s former West Bengal unit president wondered if having a foreigner as the second wife was a ‘degree’ for getting the Nobel prize.

“Those people whose second wives are foreigners are mostly getting the Nobel prize. I don’t know whether it is a degree for getting the Nobel,” Sinha stated.

Furthermore, he added,”Piyush Goyal is right because these people have daubed economics in the colours of the Leftist policies. They want to run economics through the Leftist road. But Leftist policies have become redundant in this country.”

The BJP leader made the comment in an apparent reference to the Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, who won the prestigious award jointly with his second wife Esther Duflo – a French-American economist – and fellow US professor Michael Kremer.

Earlier on Friday, Goyal had lambasted Banerjee saying,”You all know that his thinking is totally Left-leaning. He supported ‘NYAY’ (poverty alleviation scheme of Congress) and people of India rejected his ideology).”

Prior to Goyal and Sinha, BJP general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh had linked Banerjee’s comments on Indian economy and an article written by Parakala Prabhakar (Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s husband) on the ogoing crisis to an ‘ecosystem’ that worked against the ruling party whenever elections were around.

Abhijith Bannerjee (sic) starts giving interviews. Parakala Prabhakar of yesteryears comes out suddenly. Welcome all for a 5 day fame,” BJP general secretary (organisation) Santhosh had tweeted.

Notably, the BJP leaders start criticising Banerjee days after the Nobel laureate  said that the Indian economy is on a shaky ground and the data currently available does not hold any assurance for the country’s economic revival anytime soon.

“In the last five-six years, at least we could witness some growth, but now that assurance is also gone,” Banerjee, who bagged the coveted prize jointly with his Esther Duflo and another economist Michael Kremer for his ‘experimental approach to alleviating global poverty’ had said in conversation with a news channel from the US.

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