Opposition calls Interim Budget 2024-25 as ‘anti-people’

While BJP leaders called the Interim Budget 2024-25 “encouraging” and “empowering”, opposition leaders expressed disappointment calling it an “anti-people budget”.

The key highlights of the Interim Budget 2024-25 include “no changes” to the taxation system — both direct and indirect — including import duties.

FM Sitharaman said that the “target is to reduce the fiscal deficit to below 4.5 per cent by Fiscal Year 2026”.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called it an “encouraging” budget and said, “We are fully confident that we will achieve the target of becoming a developed nation by 2047.”

BJP MP Poonam Mahajan stressed that the interim budget 2024 has empowered the poor, women, farmers and youth, and said, “A woman empowering the nation under the leadership of PM Modi who has always believed in that the country has to go forward with women leading the country. We are empowering – Garib, Mahila, Kisan, Yuva- for Viksit Bharat….”

Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Jagdish Devda welcomed the budget and said, “It is good and should be welcomed. The poor, women, youth, and farmers, all have been taken care of in this budget. Madhya Pradesh will also get the benefit of the schemes…”

Union Minister VK Singh said, “…Everything will be for ‘Vikshit Bharat’…everything has been discussed in the budget to strengthen the economy…”

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said, “Finance Minister’s Budget is aimed to strengthen India’s economic sector, in line with PM Modi’s resolve to make India the third largest economy of the world…This is a budget to speed up country’s development and increase employment…”

BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, “In the interim budget, you don’t bring any new proposals and it is a process of seeking the approval of parliament for the expenditure which you have to incur in next few months as we are going for the next election…”

Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar called the budget an excellent summary of the qualitative and quantitative transformation of the Indian economy in the last 10 years.

Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “It is a ‘vote-on-account’ which has only one purpose to keep the government solvent for the first quarter of the current fiscal year. What’s worrying is that there is a budget deficit of Rs 18 lakh crores. This means that the government is borrowing for its expenditure. This number is only going to increase next year.”

All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Debangshu Bhattacharya Dev mocked the budget saying, “We can only hope for the best because ‘Phir hogi paison ki Hera Pheri’.”

Calling it BJP’s ‘farewell budget’, SP leader and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav said, “If any budget is not for development and any development is not for the people then it is useless. The BJP government has created a shameful record by completing a decade of anti-people budgets, which will never be broken again because now is the time for a positive government to come. This is BJP’s ‘farewell budget’.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor targeted Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech calling it “one of the shortest on record and very disappointing”.

“It was one of the shortest speeches on record in the Budget. Not very much came out of it. As usual a lot of rhetorical language, very little concrete on implementation…She talked about foreign investment without acknowledging that that investment has come down significantly. She talked about a number of things which are couched in vague language like ‘confidence’ and ‘hope’ and so on. But when it comes to hard figures, very few figures available…This is going to be a very disappointing speech in terms of being couched entirely in generalities and without enough substance nor any willingness to address the specific problems of the economy…” Shashi Tharoor said.

Congress MP Karti Chidambaram reacted to Interim Budget 2024-25 and said, “Mere administrative exercise to ensure that the government of India has the requisite funds to carry on its normal business until the new parliament is constituted and a new government is formed. And that’s what they have done, except for making their obligatory self-congratulatory, self-praise phrases, nothing else is there and nothing should have been there, and rightly so. Nothing is there.”

Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) MP NK Premachandran noted that nothing is mentioned about unemployment in the Interim Budget 2024-25.

“Unfortunately, the finance minister is talking about the achievements of the last ten years. It is a temporary budget. Even then it is not giving any vision…The unemployment position in the country is alarming and nothing is mentioned about this…It is only an eloquent speech made by the finance minister…” Premachandran said.