Union Minister Piyush Goyal today sought to downplay the observations made by Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen on the present government saying that he had been saying this for a long time.

       

Sen had said yesterday that the country had made a quantum jump in the wrong direction since 2014.

       

"He has been saying this for a long time", Goyal, who holds the portfolios of finance, coal, railways and corporate affairs, said when his comments were sought.

       

Sen had said at a book launch in Delhi yesterday, "Things have gone pretty badly wrong... It has taken a quantum jump in the wrong direction since 2014. We are getting backwards in the fastest-growing economy.

"Now, India is the second worst. Pakistan has managed to shield us from being the worst," Sen said. -- PTI