Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen on Wednesday said the Centre’s bill, that seeks to provide 10% reservations to the economically backward from upper caste, indicates “muddled thinking”, PTI reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government introduced the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2019, in the Rajya Sabha. The bill was passed 323-3 in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

“If the whole of the population is covered by reservation then that would be removal of reservation,” he told PTI. “Ultimately this is a muddled thinking. But the muddled thinking may have serious political and economic effect which are seriously questionable.”

Sen said the draft law raises questions about its political and economic impact. He also criticised the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s policies while saying that they had not ensured jobs, poverty elimination and better healthcare and education for all.

The economist said the Modi administration had managed to sustain the “high economic growth” achieved during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.

Sen refuted the Centre’s claims about the effectiveness of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax regime. “We do not have to bring in the electoral success and failure in order to be able to say that demonetisation was a pretty negative and pretty bad economic policy and the way the GST has been imposed was also very defective,” Sen said.