BENGALURU: Coming out against the Union Budget, Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah on Monday said though the Budget mentioned Aatma Nirbhar (self-reliant) Bharat a number of times, it was actually a ‘Aatma Barbaad (ruinous) Budget’. Siddaramaiah said the Budget was nothing but an extension of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat announcements which Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had made earlier.
He said the Centre had not come out with any reassuring measures for the farmers. The Budget has disappointed the farmers as they were expecting waiver of interest on loans as well as interest-free loans. The government decided to impose agriculture cess, but has not announced any new programme for farmers’ welfare, he said.
Speaking to reporters, Siddaramiah said that instead of proposing to impose agri cess, the Finance Minister should have focused on farmers’ loans.He also questioned the move to privatise the power sector and increase the FDI limit in the insurance sector from 49% to 74%. He said privatisation of the power sector would only add to the burden of the farmers. There was nothing in the Budget for students, unemployed youths, minorities, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, he said. He said Karnataka did not get much but the Budget was benevolent to poll-bound states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
KPCC president D K Shivakumar said no sector or people got benefited from the Budget. Though the Centre announced earlier that two crore jobs would be created, it did not get any mention in the Budget, he said.
Former CM and JDS leader
H D Kumaraswamy said the budget was filled with colourful quotes but lacked substance.
In a series of tweets, he said, “On one side, Union government speaks about Aatma Nirbhar Bharat and they increase the prices of petrol, diesel and other essential commodities...there is no clarity on agri cess.” He said the Union government did not give the State its due share and this had become a practice.