Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday slammed TMC's Saugata Roy for his comments on the former's education and inequality in the country. She quoted Roy's comment in the Lok Sabha where he said: "I do not expect Finance Minister to be like Dr Manmohan Singh. She is not a PhD from Oxford. Not even like Chidambaram, who has a management degree from Harvard. She is from our own JNU. But the problem is she is bereft of new ideas."
"Certainly, I also don't want to be like Manmohan Singh," Sitharaman said, but asked the TMC's veteran leader whether West Bengal's Chief Minister and Finance Minister who studied in India were also bereft of ideas.
"West Bengal's Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya studied at Calcutta University. Is she also bereft of new ideas?" She asked Roy while responding to the discussion on the Budget 2024. Sitharaman said Bhattacharya makes a wonderful contribution to the GST Council.
The Union Finance Minister said the Chief Minister of Bengal was also from a college affiliated with Calcutta University. "She is a fighter leading the state for so many years. "Does it mean that if you study in Indian universities, you are bereft of ideas?" she asked.
"Whether it is the chief minister of Bengal or myself, we are from Indian universities. In what way, we are less to the Harvards of the world and the Oxfords of the world?" she said
"I want to ask this to the male chauvinist professor, who seems to be attacking women. Even worse, he is a professor at one of the Indian colleges. He is not teaching at Harvard. He is not teaching in Oxford. Is he equally not so qualified? A professor in an Indian university demeans people who have got qualifications from the Indian university. Professor Saugata Roy, please be ashamed of yourself," she thundered.
Sitharaman also rejected Roy's claim that today's inequality was higher than in 1920. "I can't believe this. Bengal suffered under the British. We all have seen images of skinny, starved, bone and skin. The people of Bengal were starved by the British. And the entire grain of Bengal was taken to fund the war. People were photographed sitting skinny, with bones and skin. That Bengal was better than now - what a shameful statement to make. Inequality was better under the British than now - what a shameful statement."
Speaking on Bengal's economy, the Finance Minister said West Bengal's share in total industrial production of the country used to be 24% at the time of independence. "Today, it is 3.5%," she said. "West Bengal accounted for 6.7% capital formation, now it accounts for only 2.9% - I will definitely give a White Paper (on Bengal economy)," she said. "Bengal attracts less than 1% of total FDI (Foreign Direct Investment)," Sitharaman said.