Kolkata, Feb 5 : Minakshi Mukherjee, the state president of CPI(M)’s youth wing, Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in West Bengal, has sent an open letter to Union finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman, questioning the latter on ‘who will be the actual beneficiaries of the tax concessions offered in the Union Budget for 2023-24’.
In the letter, Mukherjee has pointed out that the richest sections of the society will get the maximum benefit of the tax concession.
“You claim to have given tax concessions. The maximum concessions have been offered to those who are in the topmost rung of the financial ladder. And this has come at a time when 80 per cent of the country’s wealth is in the possession of just one per cent of the population,” the letter read.
The budget lacks direction towards resolving the problem of the high unemployment rate in the country. “Why does the Union budget propose a drastic reduction in the food subsidy at a time when India’s position is among the lowest in the latest Global Hunger Index? What is the rationale behind reduction in allocation of funds for the mid-day meal scheme,” the open letter read.
Claiming that the latest Union Budget is a reflection of the anti- people policies of the Union government, Mukherjee said that DYFI’s movement against the anti-people proposals there will continue. “We are not going to accept the budget proposals so easily. This budget is anti- youth. We will hit the streets protesting against the budget proposals in the coming days,” the open letter has read.
Senior BJP leader and the party’s former national secretary of the party, Rahul Sinha described the open letter as a reflection of the inability to understand the finer points of the Union budget.
“It really does not matter what the letter says considering that the budget proposals have received accolades from all sections of the society as growth-oriented,” he said. (IANS)