Four days before the union budget and less than 90 days before the general elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday promised his party would ensure "minimum income guarantee" for every poor person if it comes to power at the centre, echoing the 'Garibi Hatao' ('remove poverty') slogan coined by his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the 1971 general elections that she won.

Gandhi described as historic the Congress' decision announced by him while addressing a 'Kisaan Abhaar Sammelan' in Raipur to express gratitude to Chhattisgarh's people, particularly farmers, for voting the party to power in the state after 15 years.

Claiming that a "new India" cannot be built when million suffer the scourge of poverty, Gandhi said the Congress is committed to eradicating hunger.

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram also termed as "historic" Gandhi's announcement, saying it will mark a turning point in the lives of the downtrodden.

The idea was first mooted by the former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian in FY18 and it argues for a uniform stipend for all citizens and not just the poor.

CNBC-TV18 caught up with Surjit Bhalla, chairman, Oxus Investments; Salman Soz, spokesperson, Congress; Syed Zafar Islam, spokesperson, BJP and Pronab Sen, former chief statistician, to discuss the feasibility and implications of minimum income support scheme.

Pronab Sen said, "I am not a great votary of a truncated universal basic income (UBI) scheme for the very simple reason that the moment you say minimum income for the poor, it immediately lands you into the question of who is the poor."

There are fundamental sociological changes and it needs to be very carefully addressed before start disturbing them in any significant way, Sen said.

Surjit Bhalla said there was a very comprehensive study by Arvind Subramanian in the Economic Survey by on UBI.

"I disagreed with UBI then. What India needs is a minimum income guarantee and a substantial portions of it are already in place brought in by this government," Bhalla added.

Salman Soz said, "In India, social protection spending is very low compared to its nations in Asia, forget the rest of the world. We need to have something for the poor people so that they are not left behind."

Syed Zafar Islam said, "It is certainly a borrowed idea, it is an election gimmick. Everyone knows Congress's track record, what they have done. The Congress has given this slogan, it is an old one, it is like old wine in the new bottle."