The Congress party has criticized the budget of BJP led NDA government terming it as a pro capitalist and anti poor budget.
The Congress leader and former party chief Rahul Gandhi has accused the Modi government of encouraging crony capitalism by selling India’s assets to crony capitalist friends and castigating it forgetting to give cash in the hands of the people.
Through two tweets today Rahul Gandhi wrote : Budget 2021 must – support MSMEs, farmers and workers to generate employment, increase Health care expenditure to save lives and increase Defence expenditure to safeguard borders followed by another tweet writing : Forget putting cash in the hands of people, Modi government plans to hand over India’s assets to his crony capitalist friends tweeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
The former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambram in a press conference this evening criticised the NDA government for taking a revenge from the farmers of the country by increasing the cess of petrol and diesel terming it as a vengeful cruel act on the poor and the farmers of the country who had protested on Republic Day through a massive tractor rally against the three agricultural laws.
Strongly criticizing the budget , former finance minister P Chidambram said that it is a cruel blow on federalism as well, as states do not get the share from cesses imposed by the government on already inflated patrol and diesel prices.
He further said that the budget does not mention about any allocation to defence surprising one and all giving an impression as if the dragons have vacated the captured Indian territories.
As per the Financial Express report Chidambram said that the finance minister has not mentioned that defence expenditure in 2021, 22 will see no rise.
It is flat at Rs 347,088 crore almost the same as Rs. 3,43, 822 crores in the current year he said.
On health care Chidambram said the finance minister gave out a mind boggling figure of 2,23, 846 crore for health. It was a conjuring trick remarked Chidambram saying further that she added the one time Rs 35 thousand crores as the cost of vaccinations and the finance Commission grant amounting to Rs. 19,214 crores .
Senior Congress leader and former MP Harikesh Bahadur
According to Financial Express report quoting Chidambram, finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman also included allocations to the department of water and sanitation. Shorn of these add-ons, the allocation for health was Rs 72, 934 crores in 2020,21 and Rs 79,602 crores in 2021 n 22 he said – adding that given inflation, the increase is practically nil.
What kind of additional health care infrastructure can be built with this parsimonious allocation questioned Chidambaram.
He said in health care and defence sectors too the government has failed miserably n the fiscal situation in total mess with revenue deficit of 7.5% and fiscal deficit of 9.5% in the current year exceeding every prediction including the government’s.
He further added that the budget allocation for agriculture and allied activities have been reduced from Rs. 155,775 crores in the budget estimate of the current year to 1,48,301 crores in the BE of next year.
Similarly budget allocation for Kisan Samman Nidhi has been reduced from Rs 75000 crores to 65000 crores he said. The MSME SECTOR WAS DISMISSED in one sentence with allocation of Rs 15700 crores. The budget was a let down as never before said Chidambram says FE report.
The Congress leader Shahi Tharoor criticizing the budget tweeted : The BJP government reminds me of the garage mechanic who told his client , I couldn’t fix your brakes so I made your horns louder. #Budget2021.
The former member of parliament from Gorakhpur n Congress leader Harikesh Bahadur termed this budget as tricky, showy n flamboyant having no concrete solutions for resolving agricultural grievances, unemployment problem and inflation. Looking at the massive fiscal deficit the govt want to pursue the policy of take credit and consume Ghee. The huge fiscal deficit situation being beyond repair by the govt, it believes in selling India’s assets n taking massive loans thus putting the nation in more n more financial distress. Harikesh Bahadur says that this budget is highly pessimistic, pro capitalist encouraging crony capitalism on massive scale and killing the public sector to the core, thus being totally complacent towards resolving major peoples’ grievances, employment issues, agriculture and skyrocketing inflation.
The Congress party tweeted: The #budget2021 is a finally packaged deception. There is nothing in it for the common Indian citizen, except pain.# JantaTrustSuitBootMastwith a post: Issues facing common people: severe job loss, reduced income,rising inflation, exorbitant fuel.
