According to sources, the Finance Minister was busy with some party-assigned work and could not attend the meeting.
But the explanation failed to wash with the members of Twitterati. They started chirping about the budget being round the corner and the Finance Minister missing the Prime Minister's meeting called, presumably, to garner budget suggestions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a two-hour meeting with 40 industry heads, experts, bankers, entrepreneurs and representative of private equity firms, to gather their views on steps to revive economy.
The meeting also discussed investment climate, credit growth and structural reforms.
Modi addressed the economists on the $5 trillion economy target.
According to sources, the Prime Minister received suggestions on boosting consumption and generating demand in the economy.
Home Minister Amit Shah, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Rural Development Minister Narendra Tomar and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari were present. The five Finance Ministry Secretaries also attended the meeting.
The uploading of the meeting's photographs on the Twitter handle of the PIB, set Twitterati's tongues wagging.
"Where is Nirmala Sitharaman," asked a member of Twitterati.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked, "Where is the Finance Minister? Or has the Duo forgotten they have one?"
"Meeting with top economists, but Finance Minister missing" remarked a netizen. "They say top economist and Subramanian Swamy are not in picture. Why?"
Very soon a spate of tweets appeared on the micro-blogging site. While most netizens were wondering about Sitaharaman's absence, some were responding to others.
( With inputs from IANS )