Cong slams ‘neither here, nor there’ budget; BJP calls it historic - Hindustan Times
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Cong slams ‘neither here, nor there’ budget; BJP calls it historic

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByHT Correspondent
Jul 08, 2019 09:30 PM IST

There was hardly any mention of country’s GDP growth rate in the budget speech, he claimed, adding that the word “GDP” featured only once in it.

The union budget is characterised by a mediocre set of announcements, distinctive misses, and defining silences of matter of substance, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday, adding it was a sort of “Trishanku” budget, neither here nor there, referring to the Indian King who found himself suspended between heaven and Earth.

Shashi Tharoor(PTI file photo)
Shashi Tharoor(PTI file photo)

“Since cricket is on our minds these days with the World Cup semi-final tomorrow (Tuesday), let me say that instead of the bold boundaries we expected in this first budget after the elections, what we have are unnecessarily defensive strokes, dropped catches and quite a few no balls and wides,” he said, initiating a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the Union Budget for 2019-20.

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There was hardly any mention of country’s GDP growth rate in the budget speech, he claimed, adding that the word “GDP” featured only once in it.

The PM Kisan Samman Nidhi in its current form is far removed from the reality of the acute agrarian crisis the country is facing, Tharoor said, referring to the scheme of providing Rs 6,000 per year cash transfer to small and marginal farmers.

The common man, he said, was already paying the highest fuel prices in the world because of the government’s taxes on petrol and diesel at a time when prices of fuel were dropping worldwide.

Former Union Minister Jayant Sinha said the BJP has brought the economy back on track, transforming it into a superfast ‘Rajdhani’, and it will soon run like a bullet train.

He expressed confidence that the Centre will not only meet its target of making India a $5-trillion economy but reach the $10 trillion mark in due course.

“When our government came to power in 2014, the economy was in a critical stage... it was a passenger train. We came and brought the train on track... and made that passenger train into Rajdhani . Due to this visionary and effective budget we will make this Rajdhani train into a bullet train. And we will make opposition members and public sit on that bullet train and complete the target of (becoming a ) $ 5 trillion economy,” he said.

Terming the budget , historic and visionary, he said it promotes consumption and investment.

Other opposition parties joined the Congress in criticising the government for increasing the duty on petrol and diesel in the Budget saying it would hurt the common man and must be withdrawn.

T R Baalu (DMK) said in the Lok Sabha that the rise in fuel price would have a cascading impact on prices and demanded that it should be withdrawn immediately. Trinamool Congress member Kalyan Banerjee said that the hike in prices of petrol and diesel will have “tremendous impact on the daily life of the people”.

He wanted to know why the government raised fuel prices when crude prices in the global market had shown a declining trend over the past last three months.

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