The budget evoked sharp and contrasting reactions by the political parties in this part of the region with the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in Haryana describing the budget as a “milestone in making of modern India”, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab and ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh have criticized the Centre’s annual financial statement for being anti-farmers and anti-poor.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had lashed out at the BJP-led Central Government for meting out step motherly treatment to the border state completely ignoring it. At the same time, Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has dubbed the Budget as “disappointing” and “contrary to common man’s expectations” while adding that it was “mere artful trickery” to achieve the desired ends.
Centre acting with spirit of revenge against Punjab: CM Mann
Accusing the Central Government of acting with the spirit of revenge against Punjab, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday said that earlier Punjab was missing from the January 26 parade, and now the State is missing from the Union Budget. At the same time, he rued that no relief was given to the farmers in the Union Budget, presented by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Slamming the Centre for presenting an “anti-Punjab, anti-people, anti-farmers and directionless” Union Budget, Mann said: “It is shameful that going by its myopic mindset, the Union Government has completely ignored the state thereby bringing a huge disrespect to countless sacrifices made by the brave and hard-working Punjabis in pre and post independent era.”
He said that Punjab’s all genuine demands have been “blatantly ignored” and the state has figured nowhere in the Union Budget. “After Republic Day, this is the second deliberate attempt of the BJP-led Central Government to undermine Punjab’s contribution,” said Mann adding that he fails to understand why the BJP is meting out such step-motherly treatment with Punjab.
“Being a border state, we had demanded Rs 1,000 crore for modernization of BSF and state Police from the Centre which is necessary to combat the smuggling of drugs and weapons from across the border, especially through hi-tech drones. However, the Centre gave the cold shoulder to this demand by not allocating a budget for it thereby completely jeopardizing security in the border state,” he said.
He added that the state’s demand for starting Vande Mataram trains from Amritsar and Bathinda to Delhi; and connecting all five Takhts through rail route have been ignored.
Stating that the budget has exposed Centre’s anti-farmers stance, he said that this is the last budget of incumbent Modi Government but despite fall claims, nothing has been done to double the farmers’ income. Even the government runs away from giving remunerative MSP on crops to farmers which is very unfortunate, he said while cautioning the Centre to stop playing with fire by ignoring Punjab on key issues.