NEW DELHI: Opposition parties on Saturday called the Union Budget a “cruel betrayal of people” and “politically driven” with an eye on the Delhi and Bihar assembly elections. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said that the takeaway from the Budget is that the BJP is wooing the tax-paying middle class and the Bihar electorate.
“Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is walking on the worn-out path and the economy will trudge along on the old path and deliver no more than the usual 6 or 6.5 per cent growth in 2025-26,” Chidambaram said. “She is not willing to deregulate like the way governments did in 1991 and 2004. She is not willing to get out of the way of the people, especially the entrepreneurs and MSMEs and start-ups,” he said.
Highlighting the financial performance in 2024-25, he said the revised revenue receipts are lower by Rs 41,240 crore and the revised net tax receipts by Rs 26,439 crore. “The cruelest cuts were in allocations for the SC, ST, OBC and minorities,” he said citing examples of PM Anysuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana and PM Young
Achievers Scholarship for OBC, EBC, DNT. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said the Budget is a “band-aid for bullet wounds”, and the Centre was “bankrupt of ideas”.
The CPI (M) said that it is a “cruel betrayal” of the requirements of the people. “Instead of addressing the root cause of the demand problem being faced by so many sectors of the economy, the Modi government is seeking to stimulate the economy by giving tax cuts to the small minority with higher incomes even as expenditures are cut,” it said.
Calling it the budget by the “rich for the rich”, the party said the government proposes 100 per cent FDI entry in insurance and privatisation of power sector. “Instead of mobilising resources by taxing the rich and pushing up public investment that would help generate jobs, it has chosen to do the opposite,” it said.