Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is not among the top performing Cabinet ministers in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, according to an IANS-CVoter Survey.In the survey, which was conducted among the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and non-NDA voters, Sitharaman ranked at number seven with a score of 7.18 from the NDA voters standing just below Sports Minister Anurag Thakur.Meanwhile, the opposition voters just granted only a score of 5.57 to the Finance Minister.Notably, another woman minister in the cabinet post, Smriti Irani has managed to be a topper by grabbing the fifth spot with a score of 7.42.Among the top scorers of the Cabinet are Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the top with a whopping score of 8.36, followed by Nitin Gadkari with a score of 8.07.
Sitharaman's popularity is likely to be seen fade following the reports of rising energy prices and inflation."Today, the world is passing through difficult times. Even as the world is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict has brought in supply chain problems and shortages of various goods. This is resulting in inflation and economic distress in a lot of countries," she had said recently.Her clarification that the entire cost of the reduction in excise duty on petrol and diesel will be borne by the central government and the state's revenue won't be impacted by the move had triggered a political controversy in Rajasthan.
However, the survey also indicates that amid the hardest situation, Sitharaman could stand in a middle position with the 7th rank among the 15-member Cabinet.Recently, she had called for "proactive collective efforts" by the G20 group of the world's top economies to deal with the current slowdown in the growth momentum of the global economy.The Minister attributed the slowdown to "prolonged inflation, supply chain disruption, volatility in energy markets and investor uncertainty".The survey was conducted at the completion of eight years of the NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.