Faced with criticism for her latest Budget not doing enough for the poor, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday mocked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s 2013 comment of poverty being a state of mind, and asked if this is the poverty she was supposed to address.

Replying to the discussion on Budget 2022-23 in the Rajya Sabha, she said her Budget brings stability to the economy and has measures to create jobs. Without naming Gandhi, she referred to the Congress leader’s remarks on poverty to counter the criticism from Opposition leaders, including former finance minister P Chidambaram of the Budget leaving out the poor.