Smokers light up, make cigarette tax hike butt of Twitter jokes

Smokers coughed and took to Twitter when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hiked the tax on cigarettes from 11% to 72% in his budget.

Smokers coughed and took to Twitter when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hiked the tax on cigarettes from 11% to 72% in his budget.

While the initial reaction was of shock and despair, Twitter users managed to regain the strength to make jokes on the impact the hike will have on their lives. Though Jaitley's budget speech lasted for over two hours, it was the hike in cigarette prices that echoed across.

"Girls, now the best gift for guys would be a pack of cigarettes." tweeted @HaramiParindey to his 5k users. In fact some users were quick to suggest fellow smokers to turn to cheaper methods of satisfying their addiction. "Shift from cigarettes to Bedis #Budget2014" tweeted another user @krupakar_m.

Memes weren't far behind as well. Popular Indian news satire website Faking News posted the following tweet to its 327k users: