Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Dilip Ghosh on Tuesday said Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee runs a “five-rupee government" and prepares her budget while “walking on a treadmill".
Ghosh’s attack came in the wake of Banerjee’s “zero Budget” tweet that she wrote as a reaction to the Union Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament earlier in the day.
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The BJP national vice president said the Bengal CM takes loans from the Centre and distributes them among people without any responsibility. “She would not understand the Budget, her Budget is made hurriedly (while) walking on the treadmill,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Taking to Twitter, Banerjee said this year's Budget has “zero for common people,” who are getting trampled by unemployment and inflation. “(The) government is lost in big words signifying nothing - a pegasus spin Budget,” she wrote on the micro-blogging site.
Stating that people are sent to prison for demanding their salary in West Bengal, Ghosh further said, “If you want jobs, go to Gujarat, if you want to study, go to Karnataka, go to Chennai for treatment.”
{{/usCountry}}Stating that people are sent to prison for demanding their salary in West Bengal, Ghosh further said, “If you want jobs, go to Gujarat, if you want to study, go to Karnataka, go to Chennai for treatment.”
{{/usCountry}}Hailing the Union Budget, Ghosh said it takes forward the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the past seven years and will empower the poor by making them “aatmanirbhar (self-reliant)”.
He said the Budget will be a disappointment for people, who ask for money “sitting at home".
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Several other opposition leaders, including Congress’ Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav have criticised the Union Budget. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said the Budget is “extremely negative” for the national capital and that it betrays the farmers of the nation.
Sitharaman presented a Budget outlay of ₹39.45 trillion ($529.7 billion) for the 2022-2023 fiscal, with a focus on investment on highways and affordable housing. The government has projected an economic boost of 8-8.5 per cent as opposed to the estimated 9.2 per cent for the current fiscal.
In a post-Budget press briefing, Sitharaman said she did not increase taxes in this year's Budget so that common people are not burdened further amid the ongoing pandemic, as advised by the PM. “I did not make any attempt to earn a single paisa through taxes,” she added.