BJP MLAs stage walkout from Assembly, call Budget ‘a farce’

Accusing the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of copying the central government’s schemes and passing them off as the state’s by changing their names, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said there was nothing new for the people in the Budget document.

Earlier, the BJP legislators staged a sit-in on the Assembly premises against the suspension of two of its MLAs, among other issues.

“The Budget is a farce. We listened to the finance minister for 20 minutes. Then we decided to protest as we could not tolerate the blatant lies being spread. The ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ (of the Centre) has been changed to ‘Jol Swapno’, the ‘PM Kisan’ to ‘Krishak Bandhu’ and the ‘PM Awas Yojana’ to ‘Banglar Bari’. The list is endless,” Adhikari said.

He added that the state government is claiming that it bears the entire cost for several welfare schemes but in reality, the Centre bears half of the cost or even more in some cases. “The government is fooling the people of Bengal by presenting such a baseless and farcical Budget. It did not announce any new scheme as there is no major election this year,” he added.

Addressing a press conference later in the day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the BJP for staging a walkout while the Budget was being tabled. “I have been a seven-time MP. We never disrupted the President’s speech in Parliament. We never protested while the Budget was being read. The BJP has no other work than stage walkouts. They have no experience or ability to work for the people. They even disrespected our women MLAs,” Banerjee said.