New Delhi: Hitting back at Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi for his criticisms on growing unemployment in the country, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman criticized that India has ‘Rahu Kal’  (inauspicious day) when Congress was in power.

While replying to a debate on Budget in the Rajya Sabha, Ms. Sitharaman dug out a comment made by Rahul Gandhi in 2013, he termed poverty is a "state of mind", saying "... does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things" and "... if one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty"

Finance Minister cited pre-2014 consumer price index figures of 9.1 per cent during the global financial crisis as against current levels of around six per cent post-Covid to declare "the opposition couldn't handle a lesser crisis", she criticized.

"'Rahu kal' is when the Congress is the government... when they say 'ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon' (Priyanka Gandhi’s slogan for elections in UP and other states) but girls are not able to fight in Rajasthan," the Union Minister said.

The Congress has remarked that the Modi government is lashing out because it is "scared of Rahul Gandhi".

Condemning the statement of Nirmala Sitharaman, Rajya Sabha MP, Shaktisinha Gohil said that "The Finance Minister has given a statement on Rahul Gandhi in anger... We raised this question in the discussion on the budget that 27 crore people have gone below the poverty line because of this economic crisis..."

Ms Sitharaman presented Union Budget on February 1, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders criticized the budget, calling it a "zero sum budget" with no provisions for the middle class or those from poor or deprived sections of society.