New Delhi: Calling the Union Budget ‘insipid’ and lacking in stimulus for growth, the Congress said Saturday the government’s annual financial statement comprises piecemeal measures, repackaged schemes, jugglery of tax slabs and has no real solutions to solve the economic crisis.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has said there is nothing concrete in the budget as the biggest problem in front of the country is unemployment and the government has not addressed that.
“This is the mindset of the government — all talk and nothing concrete. The biggest problem our youngsters are facing is unemployment and I didn’t see any strategic idea as how they will get jobs,” said Rahul Gandhi.
Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said that at a time when India is in the midst of an economic downturn, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech focuses more on praising the prime minister rather than helping the common citizen.
“Longest Budget speech is also the most lacklustre budget ever. After ‘Acche Din, New India’, it now appears that the government has also abandoned the target of USD 5 trillion economy,” Patel said in a series of tweets. This budget confirms not only the bankruptcy of the economy but also a bankruptcy of government’s ideas, he claimed.
“Piecemeal measures, repackaged schemes, jugglery of tax slabs & no real solutions to solve the present economic crisis,” Patel said referring to the Union Budget. “After squeezing out LIC of profitability the government now wants to sell it, to rescue itself,” said Patel.
Patel also said that after ‘harassing’ tax payers for last six years, the government seems to have realised its disastrous impact on the economy. “We hope this will not be mere lip service but will be implemented in letter and spirit,” said Patel.
Congress leader and senior spokesperson Anand Sharma said that the ‘budget is insipid, lacking in stimulus for growth’ and no clear roadmap for job creation has been given in the budget.
The Congress, on its official Twitter handle, also said that core sector growth stood at 1.3 per cent in December, despite the significant fall from the same time last year, and Budget has failed to layout a roadmap on how the government plans to address this serious issue.
Slamming the Union Budget, the CPI(M) said Friday that it consisted of just ‘platitudes’ and did not address the problems faced by the people.
Reacting to the Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that it did nothing to alleviate ‘people’s miseries’.
“Just platitudes & slogans. Nothing substantial to alleviate peoples’ misery, the growing unemployment, rural wage crash, farmers’ distress suicides and galloping prices,” tweeted Yetchury.
The Trinamool Congress also slammed the Union Budget over removal of tax exemptions and questioned such a move in a country with no social security.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced new slabs and reduced the tax rate for different slabs for an individual income of up to Rs 15 lakh per annum, if a taxpayer opts for foregoing exemptions and deductions.
See link:
https://twitter.com/derekobrienmp/status/1223527799203475457
“Tax cut ki goli mat do (don’t lie about tax cuts). Read the fine print on the so-called IT cuts. Government removes incentives to ‘save’ in a nation where there is no social security,” TMC’s national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’ Brien tweeted. He said ‘70/100 tax exemptions withdrawn. Exemptions were given as incentive to save money in PPF, LIC, Health insurance etc’.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that step-motherly treatment has been meted out to Delhi again in the Union Budget.
Kejriwal took to Twitter to express his disappointment over the Budget for 2020-21 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and asked on Twitter, “When Delhi doesn’t figure in the BJP’s priorities, why should people vote for it? Delhi had high expectations from the Budget, but step-motherly treatment has been meted out to it again.
The AAP national convener also asked that if the BJP was disappointing Delhi before the Assembly Elections, ‘will it fulfil its promises after the polls?’
Delhi goes to polls to polls February 8 and the Assembly election results will be announced February 11.
Agencies