New Delhi: The Modi government’s decision to advance the Union Budget to February 1 this year has not gone down well with Opposition parties.
According to a report in The Indian Express, sixteen Opposition parties, including the Congress, have written to President Pranab Mukherjee and the Chief Election Commissioner, claiming that the move is an attempt to influence the Assembly elections in five states.
Dates for the elections in UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa are set to be announced by the EC at 12 noon on Wednesday.
In their joint letter sent earlier this week, the Opposition parties have questioned the Modi government’s intentions, saying the government could announce populist schemes in the middle of the election campaign in order to win the polls.
Among those who have signed the letter are Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav and JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav, said the report.
Taking the moral high ground, the letter states that the UPA government deferred the Union Budget to March 16 in 2012 when the same five states — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur went to the polls.
“All the Opposition parties have opposed it because the functioning of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government is marked by authoritarianism and arbitrariness, with scant respect for parliamentary precedents and practices. The Opposition was not even consulted. A similar situation had arisen in 2012, when elections were to be held in the same states. And the presentation of Budget, on the demand of the then principal Opposition party, was deferred, respecting the correctness of democratic traditions and the need of fairness of elections,” Congress Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma was quoted as saying.
Sharma claimed that the move to advance the Budget was a way of subverting the free and fair election process, ensuring which is a responsibility of the Election Commission.
