Only for corporates, nothing for the poor, farmers: Opposition in RS

A day after Chidambaram opened the debate on the Budget for the Opposition, his party colleague Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said the government was not looking at ground realities.

Sibal said he was “taken in by key words” that the Finance Minister used in her speech: “digital, green, climate, Atmanirbhar, made in India, capital expenditure, ease of doing business, tax avenues, GST collection, futuristic economy driven by technology, clean fuel, smart cities.”

But, he said, certain words were missing: “unemployment, poverty, food security, informal sector, migrants, daily wagers, health for all, welfare, social protection, women, youth”.

Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for calling Congress part of the “Tukde Tukde Gang”, he said that “those who do tukde tukde of civilization, history, Constitution, brotherhood” are the leaders of the Tukde Tukde Gang.

Sibal said the BJP talks of “Amrit Kaal”, but all he can see is “Rahoo Kaal”. He said the focus of the Budget was on infrastructure, but it does not provide relief to the sector where maximum jobs had been shelved – 9.8 million in manufacturing, 5 million in hotel and tourism, 4 million in education among others.

India, he said, has a worse unemployment rate compared to Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. He also said the government’s health expenditure – at US$ 172 per capita – was along the world’s lowest.

CPI leader Binoy Viswam called the Budget a “failure” and said it was intended to benefit only “big corporate houses such as Tata, Birla, Ambani and Adani”. He said the Budget was “not for the poor but the rich at the top”, and added that it did not help the farmers, women and health sector, with reduced allocation and slashed subsidies.

TRS member K R Suresh Reddy said, “With the heavy heart, I must tell the Finance Minister that a 90-minute (Budget) speech has left 90 crore Indians out of a Budget. This so-called progressive Budget has alienated the majority of the poor people.”

DMK’s M Mohamed Abdulla said raised the issue of cryptocurrency, saying that it is unprecedented to tax something which is illegal in the country. “The government has levied 30% tax on cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is illegal in the country and we can only tax that which is a legal system. Does the taxation make cryptocurrency legal?”

Countering the Opposition’s claims, BJP’s Sushil Modi said each page of the Budget had the focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs”. He said it is “job-oriented” and stressed on “growth with job creation”. He said it was “100 times” better than any Budget that Chidambaram presented when he was the Finance Minister.

India, he said, will send Rs 20 lakh crore in capital expenditure till 2023, calling it the biggest ever. Capital expenditure, he said, has a “multiplier effect” and stated that if revenue expenditure is increased by Rs 100, only Rs 98 is added to the economy, but if Rs 100 is spent as capital expenditure, Rs 245 is added to the economy in the first year and Rs 480 in the subsequent years.