Behind Sambit Patra’s struggle with trillion’s zeroes, a Congressman who was XLRI professor

Congress' Gourav Vallabh, who stumped BJP's Sambit Patra in a TV debate, is little known in the party but is an expert on economy with papers published at Harvard.

File photo of Congress leader Gourav Vallabh | Twitter @GouravVallabh

New Delhi: In his takedown of BJP’s media panellist Sambit Patra, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh found an opening in familiar territory — the economy and the numbers surrounding it.

Debating on the 100 days of the Modi government on a Hindi channel on 10 September, Patra decided to play up the Modi government’s ambitions to make the country a $5 trillion economy by 2024. Not only wasn’t Vallabh buying it, he decided to pose a rather simple question: “Just how many zeroes are there in a trillion?”

A confounded Patra, who has made a name out of TV studios, attempted to tactfully avoid answering the question by trying to lampoon former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

But Vallabh would have none of it.

In the video clip that has since gone viral on social media, the Congress spokesperson then goes on to explain that a trillion has 12 zeroes or 10^12, before going on to add for good measure that 10^9 is a billion and 10^6 is a million.

It should then come as no surprise that the 42-year-old Vallabh was a professor of finance at the premier XLRI management institute in Jamshedpur. An academic by training with a doctorate in credit risk assessment, Vallabh is the author of over 50 international publications and had been affiliated with the RBI, worked with Punjab National Bank and was the director of the CA Institute in Delhi.

“I have presented my research papers at Harvard University and have visited at least 20 countries in this regard. I read and write in my spare time,” Vallabh told ThePrint. “I have already penned three books and my next book is coming in October.”

The son of professors at Pali in Rajasthan, Vallabh is a first-generation politician who joined the Congress in 2018. He was among the 10 newly-appointed Congress spokespersons in January but is little known in the party.

The Congress connection

Vallabh joined the Congress in February 2018 after being first spotted by senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala.

“Earlier, I used to informally provide the party with inputs on the economy and finance whenever asked for. That’s how Mr Surjewala knows me,” Vallabh had told ThePrint in January when he was appointed the national spokesperson. “In February 2018, I approached him with a request to join the party full time.”

Vallabh told ThePrint that he first wrote to Rahul Gandhi and Surjewala in 2017 following the spate of lynchings in the country. “I came back after a short teaching assignment in the University of Texas in late 2017,” Vallabh said. “I was extremely upset by how BJP was polarising society.”

Shortly after, Vallabh was asked to join the Congress as a media panellist in 2018. Less than a year later, Surjewala asked him to to be a national spokesperson for the party.

“I wanted the people to know that the polarised perspective they were moving towards did not represent India,” he told ThePrint. “I wanted to change that and found that Congress ideology was closest to mine and aligned with it.”

He met Rahul shortly after being inducted as a national spokesperson but has had little interaction with either interim chief Sonia Gandhi or the party’s UP (East) in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Little known in the Congress

Despite his new-found fame, Vallabh is an unknown entity in the Congress. Hardly any of the leaders ThePrint reached out to knew of the national spokesperson.

The few who recognised him in the party feel he is a quick thinker capable of intelligent debate with a nuanced understanding of his subject. “He is a fiery orator who draws from his expertise in his subject to make intelligent arguments,” former Jharkhand PCC chief Ajoy Kumar told ThePrint.

“He can break down maths and economics to its very basics helping everyone understand the subject,” said fellow national spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill.

“He’s a low-profile worker,” a Congress functionary told ThePrint. “He’s not interested in publicity, for him the need to educate is important.”

Staunch belief in religion

Vallabh prays for three hours every day and doesn’t consume either onion or garlic but at the same time believes that his ideas of religion are intensely personal and not for public consumption.

“Just because I don’t eat onion and garlic doesn’t mean you can’t either,” Vallabh said. “I don’t even divulge my caste surname because that’s not what politics should be about.”

This is not the first time he has stumped Patra, though. At a debate last year, Vallabh was responsible for leaving Patra speechless after he asked the latter to recite some verses from the Ram Charitra Manas.

“I asked Patra to recite one Chaupai of the Ramayana. He doesn’t even know one single word from Ramayana but I have the Sundar Kand (fifth book of the epic) on my fingertips,” Vallabh says. “Does that mean I should ask Sambit Patra to go to Pakistan? No. But whenever I talk about economic issues, he starts shouting Pakistan and Imran Khan.”

Although both spokespersons indulge in ugly fights on screen, they have friendly relations off camera. “We haven’t had any chai-coffee together yet but we are friendly to each other,” Vallabh said. “I don’t appear on TV to win the debates. I simply want to represent the facts.”

Has Patra replied to his zeroes in trillion question yet? “That day he left for his flight just after the show,” Vallabh said. “For every question, they (BJP) have Bharat Mata ki Jai or Sonia Gandhi, Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi.”