Trashing the Union Budget for 2019-20 as a ‘jumla budget’ of the Modi government, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday described it as a hogwash, with nothing for the farmers and youth, while putting more burden on the common man.
Reacting to the last budget of the ‘jumla sarkar’, the Chief Minister said that it was an election-centric budget aimed at misleading the people with false promises, which were not backed by numbers.
Though ostensibly a populist budget, it was a typical budget of a government on its last legs, with nothing except fake promises for the people of India, said Capt Amarinder, rejecting it as “all fluff and no action”.
The Chief Minister termed the Rs 6,000 a year announced for marginal farmers as mere peanuts. “With just Rs 500 a month for the distressed farmers, the Modi government had made it obvious that they did not recognise the gravity of the problem,” said Capt Amarinder, dubbing the exercise as a mockery of the interests of the farming community.
Even the MSP of 50 percent above the production cost was nothing but an eyewash as the government was not buying all the items on the list, he said, pointing out that while Maize had an MSP, it was not being bought by the government, forcing the farmers to sell it at an abominably low cost.
Budget a mere political gimmick to allure people, says AAPAam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday maintained that the Union Budget-2019 was nothing but a mere political gimmick to lure the gullible people ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2019.
“Budget’s sole objective is to entrap the people by offering them small sops,” said AAP’s Punjab unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann adding that the ploy would not work this time around as the people had enough of this budget ‘jumla’ during the past budgets it presented.
He said that the common man had been hit hard every time the budget was presented by the union government, leaving a vast majority high and dry.
Mann demanded that the Modi government should immediately implement the recommendation of Swaminathan Commission instead of giving them small consolations in terms of granting sops offered in the budget.