The Congress slammed Union minister Piyush Goyal on Friday for his remarks that Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee's suggestion of a minimum income scheme to the party was rejected by Indian voters and there was no need to "accept what he thinks", saying it smacked of "arrogance".
Goyal, at a media briefing in Pune, also described Banerjee as a "Left-leaning" person.
Banerjee, an Indian-American who has been critical of the Narendra Modi government's economic policies, won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences.
He had endorsed "Nyay", the minimum basic income scheme promised by the Congress during the Lok Sabha polls held in April-May.
Reacting to Goyal's remarks, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said in a tweet, "...So electoral victory makes Nobel experts wrong, maybe ignorant; Nyay bad because BJP returned to power. Amazing inverse logic and huge arrogance."