Union Budget 2016: Opposition slams ‘lack of vision’

The Opposition united on Monday to criticise the Union Budget, even as the BJP praised it for its focus on rural India and farmers, calling many measures “historic”.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Yadav termed the document as “disappointing” and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said it did not address the concerns of the farmers and the middle class.

Mr Kumar said that “no mention of a special package” for Bihar will disappoint people, and said the Budget has no mention of the “promises to generate employment for jobless youths and to bring back black money”. He also raised the issue of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna, and said that the Centre was trying to put added burden of 40 per cent on states like Bihar. “The Centre is not allocating funds which were proposed by us earlier,” he complained.

Mr Lalu Yadav, who spent the day monitoring the Budget at his house in Patna, asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give guarantee that the incomes of farmers will double by 2022. He said he did not see much for farmers and Bihar in the Budget. “How will they do it and why not by 2018 Where is the blueprint ” the RJD chief asked. He added, “They are just trying to mislead people. There is an election in 2019. I don’t think with this kind of Budget they will ever return to power.”

Mr Kejriwal accused the Modi government of “cheating” people while questioning the black money amnesty scheme.

Former information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari tweeted that the Budget is “high on rhetoric, flawed on comparison, low on imagination, bereft of ideas, services oligarchs, constricts freedom of RBI”.

The Trinamul Congress dubbed the Budget “hopeless”, saying it does not offer any solution to the economic problems.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Budget was full of “hollow promises” and will burden commoners who will feel the pinch of hike in indirect tax. “As with the previous two Budgets, this Budget of the Modi government is again full of hollow promises and slogans. The numbers just don’t add up. FM says Budget is about fulfilling ‘desires and dreams’ but it has no vision. The dead certainty from it is of a shrinking economy,” Mr Yechury said in a series of tweets.

BJD leader Baijayant Panda termed the Union Budget as a “big step” from a macro-economic perspective for its large allocation to infrastructure, especially in rural areas, and steps to cut red tape to ensure ease of doing business.

Meanwhile, veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani termed the Budget as “one of the best so far”. BJP president Amit Shah too praised the Budget, saying its focus on rural India and farmers, besides other measures, were “historic”. He asserted that this is the first Budget since Independence that has focused so much on “villages, farmers and poor”.