Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday congratulated Indian-origin economist and academic Prof Abhijit Banerjee on winning the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, saying he had helped conceptualise the NYAY scheme of the party, which was a major promise for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Gandhi also took a potshot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that "Modinomics" was "destroying the economy".
"Congratulations to Abhijit Banerjee on winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Abhijit helped conceptualise NYAY that had the power to destroy poverty and boost the Indian economy. Instead, we now have Modinomics, that's destroying the economy and boosting poverty," Gandhi said in a tweet.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had promised 'Minimum Income Guarantee Scheme' (MIGS) or called Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), to 20 per cent of the poorest families. The scheme assured them a minimum income of Rs 6,000 per month or Rs 72,000 a year.
Gandhi had announced NYAY and the party had set a lot of hopes on the scheme in the Lok Sabha polls.
Banerjee, his French-American wife Esther Duflo and American economist Michael Kremer were on Monday awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."
"The research conducted by the 2019 Economic Sciences laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research," said a tweet from the official handle of the Nobel Prize committee.
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