Good he won, but we know what he stands for, Piyush Goyal destroys the Halo around Abhijit Banerjee

It is pretty safe to say that the only Nobels that matter are Physics, Chemistry and Medicine/Physiology. Rest is just political propaganda. While the Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize has been awarded to controversial people like Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres- all of whom had been actively involved waging war against other countries, the Nobel prize in Economics or as PM Modi aptly puts it, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, has been quite controversial too. Upon close investigation, it would be pretty clear that in West, only Free Market champs win the Nobel Prize. In East only Welfarists win. It seems as if the west wants to keep the east poor by glorifying left-brand economists through Nobels. It was in this light that Piyush Goyal, while congratulating Abhijit Banerjee, for winning the Nobel in Economics along with 2 more, attacked his brand of economics.

Take a look at what he said:

In Piyush Goyal’s words “Abhijit Banerjee ji ko nobel prize mila main unko badhai deta hun.Lekin unki samajh ke bare me to aap sab jaante hain.Unki jo thinking hai,wo totally left leaning hai.Unhone NYAY ke bade gungaan gaye the,Bharat ki janta ne totally reject kar diya unki soch ko.” Which would roughly translate to “I congratulate Abhijit Banerjee for winning the Nobel but everyone knows about his acumen. His thinking is totally left leaning. He glorified NYAY which was squarely rejected by the people of India”

NYAY was Congress’ flagship economic policy for their next term. It was a disaster of Venezuelan proportions. NYAY, promised to provide Rs 72,000 annually or a flat, uniform amount of Rs 6,000 per month to the poorest Indian families. The scheme was called out by many as just an ‘electoral gimmick’. NYAY targeted the poorest 20 percent of Indians, or about five crore families. However, NYAY with its overtly socialist overtones was touted to be a huge burden of Indian economy.

Congress went out of its way to justify NYAY. Sam Pitroda, a leading Congress intellectual had stated “Taxes may go up but I do not think that’s a major issue”. In the very next sentence, he went on to speak in a condescending tone about the middle class and asked them to not be selfish. He stressed, “Don’t be selfish, have big heart,” in a very demeaning and insulting manner.

And Abhijit Banerjee, the brain behind Congress’ NYAY also admitted that the taxes on middle class would be increased to fund the scheme. In an interview with Rahul Shivshankar of Times Now he categorically said, “No NYAY without tax increase.” In another interview with Rajeev Dubey of Business Today he said that there is scope for direct as well as indirect tax increase. When Banerjee was asked what taxes should increase and what are the new taxes that can be imposed, he said, “Income taxes. In principle, there’s scope for wealth taxation and in some sense there’s scope for increasing GST.”

This is nothing but a glaring case of tax terrorism.

Piyush Goyal must be congratulated for taking the bull by its horns and destroying the Halo around Abhijit Banerjee.