The Congress on Saturday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government over the union budget, saying it was in complete denial that the economy faces a “grave macroeconomic challenge” and claimed that it had given up on reviving the economy, accelerating growth and creating jobs.
Addressing a news conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi, former finance minister P Chidambaram slammed the budget, saying there was nothing in the package that led one to believe that growth will revive in 2020-21. “The claim of 6 to 6.5% growth next year is astonishing and even irresponsible,” he said.
The senior Congress leader said the government “does not believe” in reforms and certainly not in structural reforms as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had outright rejected every reform idea in the economic survey.
“Did the finance minister read the economic survey? Was the chief economic adviser privy to the content of the budget speech? I think the answer to both questions is in the negative,” he added.
Chidambaram said the budget speech contained multiple themes, segments and programmes, leaving the listener dazed and confused.
{{/usCountry}}Chidambaram said the budget speech contained multiple themes, segments and programmes, leaving the listener dazed and confused.
{{/usCountry}}“It was a laundry list of old [that is, current] programmes. I am pretty certain that even the most loyal BJP MP or supporter cannot latch on to any idea or statement in the budget speech and take it to the people.”
If the ongoing programmes have failed the people, how will throwing more money into the programmes change anything, he asked. “The government has given up on reviving the economy or accelerating the growth rate or promoting private investment or increasing efficiency or creating jobs or winning a greater share of world trade,” Chidambaram said.
The Indian economy is demand-constrained and investment-starved, and the finance minister has not acknowledged these two challenges, he added.
“You did not ask for such a budget and you did not deserve such a budget for voting the BJP to power. But you have to live with it until the government is forced to revisit it, as it did in 2019,” Chidambaram said.
Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the budget contained no strategic idea or anything concrete and it showed the “hollow” approach of the government that was “all talk and nothing happening”. He told reporters outside Parliament that the budget was repetitive and did not address the main issue of unemployment confronting the country’s young people and the poor state of the economy. “The main issues confronting this country today are unemployment and the situation as far as the economy is concerned. I did not see any concrete idea, any strategic idea, that would help our youngsters get jobs. I saw a lot of tactical stuff, redundant things, I did not see any central idea,” Gandhi said.
“The speech was more than 2 hours and 45 minutes [long]. A lot of repetition, a lot of rambling and nothing concrete. So it is the mindset of the government: all talk, all talk, all talk, nothing happening. But the country is, of course, suffering,” he said.
In Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the government for its proposal to sell a part of its stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), describing it as a plan to “ambush” the legacy of public institutions. “I am shocked and appalled to see how the central government plans to ambush the heritage and legacy of public institutions. It’s the end of sense of security. Is it also an end of an era?” she tweeted.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the budget consisted of just “platitudes” and did not address the problems faced by the people. “Just platitudes & slogans. Nothing substantial to alleviate peoples’ misery, the growing unemployment, rural wage crash, farmers’ distress suicides and galloping prices,” he tweeted.
In Mumbai, Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray reacted sharply, saying the budget was “far away from economic realities” and only promised dreams to the young, farmers and commoners. He said the government hoped to achieve a 10% growth rate, but it was barely 5% in the current year and as per the economic survey it is forecast to be 6-6.5% for the next year.
“This is the lowest growth rate in recent years and not in expectations with the Prime Minister’s dream of achieving a $5 trillion economy,” Thackeray said.
“The Opposition is criticising the budget because it is obligatory for them to be critical of anything the government does. If one looks at the budget objectively, it lays out a road map for building critical infrastructure with special focus on backward districts. It is high on its focus on social spending and marginalised sections. Is this what the opposition is upset about,” questioned BJP leader Amit Malviya.