Amartya Sen shouldn’t worry about a politician’s qualification to be PM: BJP

NEW DELHI The BJP has reacted sharply to Amartya Sen’s stinging disapproval of Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial bid, saying the Nobel laureate should not allow his admiration for the Gandhi family and rivalry with economists who back the Gujarat chief minister’s growth model to cloud his judgement.

“We respect him as an economist, but not as a political analyst. Professor Sen had better focus on research into problems of poverty amidst plenty in the world rather than worry too much about a politician’s qualification to be prime minister. I am afraid he sounded to me like an apologist for the Congress party,” BJP general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan said on Tuesday.

Sen had said in an interview with ET that the country needed a more secular person to be the prime minister. “I would not like a prime minister who generates concern and fear on the part of minorities…I am in favour of someone who looks at social administration and not just business administration seriously. That doesn’t mean that I don’t see what he has done and why people admire him,” Sen had said.

Pradhan drew attention to Sen’s reluctance to pass any value judgement on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. In the interview, Sen had said he did know enough about Gandhi.

“I don’t know him as a politician. I know him as a different figure. I know him as a likeable young man, who was a student at Trinity (College, Cambridge). We have met when I was Master of Trinity. We spent a pleasant day together. I did ask him if he was interested in politics. But I haven’t assessed him as a politician or potential prime minister,” Sen had told ET.

The BJP leader said that it was rather strange that the economist who had assessed all leaders in this country said he had not assessed Rahul Gandhi as a politician.