The Opposition on Wednesday slammed the NDA Government’s General Budget 2015-16 as “directionless” and said the Centre has made false promises as the economy continues to struggle with falling investments and dipping employment generation.
Initiating the debate, former Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said the Budget is full of platitudes, lacks direction and vision. lashing out at the Government for reducing budgetary support for social sector and agriculture, the Deputy leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said the Budget is “anti-poor” and “for the rich”.
As the Congress leader elaborated on budgetary cuts for various Ministries such as Women and Child Development and Education, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley intervened to say the Government is giving more funds to the States now. However, the Congress leader wondered if the NDA Government would be able to achieve 15 to 16 per cent increase in tax collection with a struggling economy.
Jaitley is likely to reply on the debate on Thursday after the Opposition demanded that the House be adjourned in compliance with the 9 pm timings allocated by Business Advisory Committee. Before Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien adjourned the Rajya Sabha, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a statement on the PM’s visit to Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri lanka.
Sharma said several members of his party were under the impression that the House will sit till 9 pm and that since they “accommodated” Swaraj’s statement the House be adjourned taking the sense of the House. Swaraj, however, clarified she made the statement as per the business scheduled of the day.
leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said that let the debate continue on Thursday and they will pass the General Budget 2015-16. In the eight-hour-long debate and discussion on the Budget, members from the ruling as well as Opposition expressed their opinions with BJP’s Prabhat Jha stating that the Budget is a reflection of the Modi Government’s commitments towards the welfare of the people and slammed the Opposition for their criticism of the Budget.
Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agrawal also attacked Government for pruning budgetary allocation for important sectors like agriculture and education while “pampering” the corporate sector. Agrawal also wondered why the Government could not take “revolutionary” steps when it has a clear majority and found it pointless to carry on with loss-making public sector units.
While JD(U)’s Pavan Kumar Varma said the Budget is “lopsided”, his party colleague Harivansh criticised the Budget stating that several provisions announced has failed to meet the aspirations of the common man and poor people in general. Journalist-turned-politician Harivansh gave examples from several newspaper articles on the different stages of the economy following which he was appreciated by Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
TMC’s Sukhendu Sekhar Roy attacked the Government for reducing allocation on welfare schemes such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and mocked at it for provisioning Rs100 crore for “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” programme.