Tharoor described the budget speech as disappointing, and said this government has a talent for dressing up its failures as successes.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor speaks about the Manipur voilence. (ShashiTharoor/ Twitter)
Opposition leaders expressed disappointment at the interim budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, 1 February, saying the government dressed up its failures as successes.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor described the budget speech as “short” and “disappointing”, and said this government had a “talent for dressing up its failures as successes”.
“The budget speech was short and disappointing. There was very little of substance. Lot of issues not touched upon — the incredibly high unemployment — you cannot talk of empowering the youth when 45 per cent youth unemployment exists in the country,” he told PTI.
Tharoor said there was absolutely no mention of any of the failures of the government.
“…was there anything about women…we are looking at a situation where declining female labour participation rate is a real factor and yet she talked about ‘nari shakti’,” he said.
Tharoor claimed that while Sitharaman talked about FDI, she did not acknowledge that FDI has gone down from 3.6 percent in the UPA’s time to less than 1 percent of the GDP today.
“So, we have a real issue with this government’s talent for dressing up its failures as successes,” he said.
Congress leader Manish Tewari said what was “extremely worrying” was the increasing fiscal deficit because the numbers presented by the finance minister clearly demonstrated that over ₹18 lakh crore was the unfunded extent of the Union Budget, and “the number is going to increase over the next year”.
“If you leave that aside for a moment, the rest of the budget speech was a mere grandstanding. It was like driving looking into the rearview mirror rather than looking ahead,” he said.
Sitharaman tried to run down what happened 10 years ago, Tewari said, referring to the rule of the Congress-led UPA government.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the Narendra Modi government’s “last” budget, said Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, taking a swipe at the BJP-led Union government after the Union Budget was presented.
Addressing party workers in Raigad district, adjoining Mumbai, Thackeray stated that Sitharaman said that the budget would focus on four “castes”, namely the poor, women, youth and farmers.
Thackeray said the government has finally realised that the country has these four sets of people.
“The Modi government presented its last budget. Want to thank the finance minister because she did it with a very heavy heart and presented the last budget,” Thackeray said.
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal said the interim Budget for 2024-2025 has dashed the expectations of the general public since no tax concession was offered.
“This time too the expectations of the general public were dashed. No tax concession, no reduction in petrol and diesel prices, and no talk of reducing inflation. Women’s safety and upliftment only on paper,” Maliwal said in a post on X in Hindi.
इस बार भी आम जनता की उम्मीदों पर पानी फिर गया। कोई टैक्स रियायत नहीं, पेट्रोल-डीज़ल के दामों में कोई कटौती नहीं, महंगाई कम करने की कोई बात नहीं। महिला सुरक्षा और उथान सिर्फ़ काग़ज़ पे।#Budget2024
— Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) February 1, 2024
Sitharaman on Thursday presented her sixth straight budget, ahead of the Parliamentary elections.
Sitharaman presented a pre-election budget, which technically is a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget to meet the central government’s essential expenditure for the first four months of the new fiscal year that starts in April.
A new government elected after the April/May general elections will present the full Budget, likely in July.
(With PTI inputs)
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