Govt Shouldn't Wait for Apple to Fall on its Head: Yechury on Goyal's ‘Gravity’ Gaffe

New Delhi: Taking a dig at Union minister Piyush Goyal's comment that mathematics did not help eminent scientist Albert Einstein discover gravity while speaking on the government's target of $5 trillion economy, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said instead of focusing on distant dreams, the minister should focus on reality.

 The Commerce and Industry Minister was trolled over the gaffe in explaining that achieving the target of nearly doubling the size of the economy to $5 trillion should not be looked through the prism of math. His clarification later, again attributing ‘gravity’ to Einstein and not Isaac Newton, further send hashtags trending on Twitter.

In a tweet, Yechury said, "The govt shouldn't wait for an apple to fall on its head before it realises that the Math about the economy is all bad. It doesn't even need an Einstein (due apologies to Newton) to tell us that. Instead of focusing on distant dreams, minister would do well to focus on reality."

At a meeting of the Board of Trade, Goyal said, "Do not get into the calculations that you see on television...Oh if you are looking at $5 trillion economy, the country will have to grow at 12%, today it is growing at 6-7%."

"Do not get into those maths. Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity. If he had only gone by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I do not think there would have been any innovation in this world," he said while wrongly attributing the discover of gravity to renowned scientist Einstein,” he said to drive the point in.

Later, when alerted on trolling on Twitter, the Minister clarified his comment, accused people of pulling his comment ‘out of context’ but yet again attributed discovery of ‘gravity’ to Einstein.

Taking a dig at “Former Finance Minister” Goyal, Congress party tweeted: “@piyushgoyal is correct, Einstein did not require maths to discover gravity, but Sir Isaac Newton did. FYI, maths is also required to #FixTheEconomy.”