'Don't know which planet she is living on': Priyanka Gandhi's swipe at Nirmala Sitharaman

The Congress on Tuesday hit out at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's reply to the discussion on the Union budget in the Lok Sabha, accusing her of trying to score political points instead of addressing the real issues.

"I don't know which planet she is living on. She is saying there is no inflation, there is no rise in unemployment, there is no rise in prices," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi said.

She was speaking to reporters outside the parliament.

In her speech, Sitharaman said that the inflation trend appears to be moderating in the country. She also said the government was using almost the entire borrowing in 2025-26 towards financing capital expenditure.

Congress general secretary in-charge organisations K.C. Venugopal said the minister's reply to the budget discussion was a "masterclass" on how to shift blame, deflect, and distract from reality.

"Her arrogant dismissal of the pressing issues raised by the opposition shows that her real intentions were never to respond to the gaps highlighted in the budget, but to score political points," he said in a long post on X.

Venugopal said Sitharaman was cherry-picking the UPA-era statistics to explain why key economic indices were in terminal decline. He also accused the minister of shifting the blame to state governments instead of explaining the stagnation or reduction in budget allocations for key social welfare schemes.

"It was our hope that the collective wisdom of the house will guide this government to course correct, but as we have seen since 2014, the people of India have been left disappointed as their government indulges in a political slugfest without providing any answers to the pressing economic crisis we are faced with," he said.