Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s absence from a high-level meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with top Ministers, Government officials and tycoons of India Inc created a buzz on the twitter.
More so because when the PM interacted with top business tycoons to discuss the issues facing the economy and measures needed to boost growth, the FM was not present. Business tycoons, like Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, were among those who attended the meeting.
Away from the meeting, the Finance Minister was present in the BJP office discussing Budget proposals with the party’s frontal organisations’ leaders.
The Congress took a swipe at the Finance Minister over her absence at a pre-Budget meeting with economists and experts at the Niti Aayog here which was chaired by the Prime Minister. “Here’s a suggestion, next Budget meeting, consider inviting the Finance Minister,” the Congress said on its official Twitter handle, using the hashtag “FindingNirmala”.
“How many men does it take to do a woman’s job,” the Opposition party said in another tweet, using the same hashtag. The Congress tagged a tweet of the BJP that said the Finance Ministry has invited suggestions for the Union Budget 2020-21.
“Citizens from all walks of life are welcome to be a part of this exercise,” the tweet on the BJP twitter handle said.
The FM’s meeting assumes significance as the Government is in the process of formulating Budget proposals for 2020-21, the focus of which is likely to be on accelerating economic growth which is estimated to slip to an 11-year low of 5 per cent during 2019-20.
Home Minister Amit Shah, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Commerce and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant, Bibek Debroy, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister were present at the Thursday meeting which discussed a host of issues, including those related to agriculture, infrastructure sectors.
The FM’s absence from the PM’s meeting created quite buzz on twitter. Some of the interesting tweets are as follow:
Aaditya@AadityaPhadnis
Nirmala Tai ko bhi bula liya karo kabhi.
Niraj Bhatia
?@bhatia_niraj23
Where is the economic star ?
Gaurav Gupta@gaurav94gupta
They are discussing about finance but finance minister is missing! What kind of sorcery is this!