OPPN SLAMS NDA’S PROPOSALS
Says announcements done with general elections in mind
Opposition parties slammed the interim budget on Friday as a pre-electoral exercise in empty rhetoric, with Congress president Rahul Gandhi taking aim at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a ₹75,000 crore income support package for farmers that he said was an insult to the farming community. Former finance minister P Chidambaram said it wasn’t an interim but fullfledged budget with an eye on elections.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati and her alliance partner in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, called the budget “jumlebaazi” (words without substance), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had made promises that were not for it to make in an interim budget.
Besides the income support project for farmers, finance minister Piyush Goyal proposed an income tax rebate for those earning up to ₹5 lakh per year and a ₹3,000 per month pension for unorganised workers above 60 years of age.
Gandhi attacked Modi, saying “five years of your incompetence and arrogance has destroyed” the lives of farmers. He targeted the government’s proposed scheme to provide direct income support of ₹6,000 each to poor and marginal farmers.
“Giving them ₹17 a day is an insult to everything they (farmers) stand and work for,” he tweeted.
“Dear NoMo, five years of your incompetence and arrogance has destroyed the lives of our farmers.”
The Congress sought to put up a brave face and seem unfazed by the government’s budget proposals that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party claimed had rattled the entire opposition camp.
Some NDA leaders called the budget a “surgical strike” against the opposition.
Gandhi said: “There will be surgical strikes on Modi government in a few months in the elections.”
Chidambaram dismissed the budget as an “account for votes” and not a vote on account.
“It is crystal clear that the government has no hope of returning to power and has, therefore, acted desperately and recklessly, and in violation of the Constitution,” he said, addressing a news conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi.
“It was not an interim budget. It was a full-fledged budget accompanied by an election campaign speech. By doing so, the government has trampled on time-honoured conventions,” he alleged.
Chidambaram said the budget was “silent” on jobs and education, and ridiculed the Modi government, saying all that it understood was “pakodanomics” (a term coined after the Prime Minister commented that street vendors selling pakodas should also be considered as employed).
““All of the announcements are last-gasp announcements by a government whose term will effectively end in about 90 days,” Chidambaram said, referring to a proposal for welfare of cows, a new department of fisheries and a pension scheme for unorganised workers.
Chidambaram’s party colleague Mallikarjun Kharge dubbed the budget as BJP’s “election manifesto”, and accused the ruling party of “bribing” the voters ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
“There is politics in everything they do. This budget is only an election manifesto that the BJP read in Parliament and it is only for getting votes. But the people understand that they will not be befooled anymore,” he said.
Mayawati saw the interim budget against the backdrop of growing economic disparity over the last five years, which she said had only benefited a handful of rich and not the farmers and the poor.
“Jumlebazi cannot change the destiny of the country and end longstanding problems like poverty, unemployment and inflation,” she said.
Her alliance partner Yadav also accused the government of trying to mislead the people.
“The BJP government is only worried about votes and not the people. In its regime, it broke the backbone of the people with demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax.
“It adversely affected the economy. Now in the year, when people are going to say goodbye to the BJP, it has once again resorted to ‘jumlebazi’ to befool people,” Yadav said.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the budget will prove to be “final jumla” of the government.
The CPI(M), in a statement, said the budget was a testimony to the BJP’s “fear and desperation” about what that verdict of the people might be in the next general elections.
“It has sought to use what is an interim budget to make promises that are not for it to make,” the party said.
“The Modi government has now become famous for suppressing and manipulating data and offering jumlas to the people. The interim Budget for 2019-20 is yet another exercise in the same vein.
“The acting finance minister made tall claims during his speech about the record of the Modi government and promises of a rosy future for all Indians – which was a cruel joke played on the suffering people of the country,” the CPI(M) said.