NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal slammed the Budget as inflationary. “This Budget will benefit a few big companies and will increase the woes of the common man with inflation,” he tweeted.
Kejriwal’s deputy Manish Sisodia, who also holds finance as well as education portfolios, was more scathing in his criticism. The Budget completely bypasses education and health sectors and “spells only doom” for the poor, the middle class and the farmers, said the number two in the ruling AAP and the Delhi government.
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“The announcement of 137% increase in budget for ‘healthcare and well-being’ is misleading and an attempt to hide the reality that this government doesn’t care for the people’s health. It clubs non-health schemes like clean air and water supply programmes to show an overall increase in health expenditure,” he said.
Alleging that the Budget was “apathetic” towards the pain of the farmers and the jobless, Sisodia said, “At a time when there’s an unprecedented farmer agitation and farm crisis, the agriculture ministry’s budget has been reduced from Rs 1.55 lakh crore to Rs 1.48 lakh crore. When unemployment is at the highest, the budget for jobs and skills ministry has been reduced from Rs 5,400 crore to Rs 3,500 crore.”
Later, Sisodia issued a statement saying that of the three Union Territories with a legislature, Delhi — which received Rs 957 crore — gets the least.
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