Oppn criticises new allocations, calls it a ‘Zero Sum Budget’
NEW DELHI: Opposition parties criticised the Union Budget announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, even as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hailed the plan as “visionary” and “growth-oriented”.
Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Rahul Gandhi called the Budget the “Modi Government’s Zero Sum Budget”, alleging in a tweet that it had nothing for the salaried and middle classes, poor people, MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and farmers.
Hours later, former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the Budget had “done nothing” to address the “grave challenges” facing the Indian economy, as he labelled the Budget speech “the most capitalist ever”.
“Not a word about reviving MSMEs that had shut down; not a word about distributing more food to combat malnutrition and hunger; not a word about cutting indirect taxes, especially GST, to contain inflation and bring down the prices of goods; and not a word about giving tax relief to the tax-paying middle class or the tax-bearing head of a household,” Chidambaram said in a statement.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury meanwhile challenged the government’s claim of a 35.4% increase in capital expenditure in 2022-23.
“This includes repaying Air India loan not backed by assets of nearly ₹52Kcr. Minus this and purchasing defence equipment capital expenditure is lower than last year’s allocation,” he tweeted.
Sitharaman on Tuesday proposed to step up public investment by raising capital expenditure by 35.4% to ₹7.5 lakh crore.
In another tweet, Yechury dubbed the budget “anti-people” and said, “When human suffering exponentially grew during the last two years, subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum [were] slashed.”
Meanwhile, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said “the budget has zero for common people, who are getting crushed by unemployment and inflation.”
“The government is lost in big words signifying nothing - a pegasus spin budget,” she tweeted, in a reference to the the alleged use of military-grade Israeli-origin spyware Pegasus.
Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav’s used the Budget to criticise the BJP ahead of this month’s assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
“All work and business has come to a standstill… Historical recession, lakhs of jobs have been lost… the income of the general public has decreased… All the savings deposited in the banks due to unemployment disease… now another BJP budget has come to cut the pockets of the people…” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said the budget tried to woo public with new promises, “while old announcements were forgotten.”
“Why is the Centre free from serious concerns like rising poverty, unemployment, inflation and farmer suicides” she said.