New Delhi, Feb 1: The opposition on Saturday described the Union Budget as one offering “band-aid for bullet wounds” and said the BJP-led Centre was only trying to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi through the announcements.
While Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said the Centre was “bankrupt of ideas” and needed a paradigm shift to solve the economic crisis, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the government was busy garnering praises for the budget when the entire country was struggling with inflation and unemployment.
Kharge — the opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha — claimed the budget was an attempt to “dupe” the people and described it as “nau sau choohe khake billi hajj ko chali” — a Hindi proverb that means seeking to be pious after committing a number of sins.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced significant Income Tax cuts for the middle class and unveiled a blueprint for next generation reforms for Viksit Bharat as she tread a fine line between fiscal prudence and providing a thrust to growth.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the “people’s budget” which, he said, put more money in the hands of the public and was a force-multiplier that would increase investments and lead to growth.
“This budget is a force-multiplier. This budget will increase savings, investments, consumption and growth,” the prime minister said in a televised message.
BJP president JP Nadda hailed the budget as a “visionary roadmap” that embodied the aspirations of 140 crore Indians and lit the way towards Modi’s Viksit Bharat vision.
The opposition, however, said the sops to the middle class had come long after they suffered the brunt of high taxes and price rise.
“A band-aid for bullet wounds! Amid global uncertainty, solving our economic crisis demanded a paradigm shift,” Gandhi said in a post on X.
The Congress criticised the budget as bereft of a cure to the “illnesses” of stagnant real wages, lack of buoyancy in mass consumption, sluggish rates of private investment, and a complicated GST system that the economy was suffering from.
It accused the Modi government of appearing to offer a “bonanza” to Bihar, governed by National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner Nitish Kumar, and “cruelly” ignoring Andhra Pradesh, another pillar of the same alliance.
In a post in Hindi on X, Kharge said the Modi government collected Rs 54.18 lakh crore in Income Tax from the middle class in the past 10 years and exemption was now being given to those earning up to Rs 12 lakh.
“The entire country is struggling with inflation and unemployment but the Modi government is bent on garnering false praises,” he said.
In this “announcement-making” budget, Make in India was changed to the National Manufacturing Mission to hide its flaws, Kharge said.
There was no roadmap to double farmers’ income and no concession in GST rates on agricultural inputs, he added. Former finance minister P Chidambaram said Sitharaman was “walking on the worn-out path and not willing to break free, as we did in 1991 and 2004”.
NOTHING FOR WB
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said there was nothing for West Bengal in the budget.
“There is nothing for the common people. They have presented the budget with the upcoming Bihar elections in mind. Last time as well, all announcements were for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Elections in Andhra Pradesh are over, the Bihar polls are coming, so the state is in focus,” the Diamond Harbour MP told reporters.
DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran called the budget a “big letdown”, especially for the middle class. “The finance minister claims she is giving tax exemption up to Rs 12 lakh but the very next line was that there is a 10 per cent tax slab for Rs 8 to Rs 10 lakh income.” “Since elections in Bihar are coming, there were a lot of announcements for Bihar, again fooling the state’s people,” he added. (PTI)