Budget: Visionary for BJP, ‘most capitalist ever’ for Opposition

Our Bureau

New Delhi, February 1

The budget, as expected, failed to enthuse the Opposition, while the BJP hailed it as visionary. The Congress said the budget reflects the Centre’s “contemptuous disregard” of the burdens and sufferings of the people. The Left parties said the Centre squeezed the revenues to States.

BJP president JP Nadda said the budget is primarily for the welfare of the poor. He said it realises the Narendra Modi Government’s vision of social justice, equality, respect and equal opportunity for all. Thanking Modi, he said the budget is inclusive and offers all-round welfare for the people of the country.

‘Unemployment on the increase’

Former Finance Minister and senior Congressman P Chidambaram said the Finance Minister should have considered the fact that the country’s economy has not recovered yet to the level in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20 and millions of jobs have been lost in the last two years. He said approximately, 60 lakh MSMEs were closed down, 84 per cent of households have suffered a loss of income, per capita income has declined from ₹ 1,08,645 in 2019-20 to ₹ 1,07,801 in 2021-22. He added that an estimated 4.6 crore people have been pushed into extreme poverty. He said the budget addressed none of such challenges.

“There was not a word in the speech about any cash assistance to the very poor who have been pushed into extreme poverty and suffered immensely during the last two years; not a word for those who had lost their jobs; not a word about creating jobs for those whose education stopped at some stage at the school level; not a word about reviving MSMEs that had shut down; not a word about distributing more food to combat malnutrition and hunger; not a word about cutting indirect taxes, especially GST, to contain inflation and bring down the prices of goods; and not a word about giving tax relief to the middle class,” he said.

He added that the budget speech was the most capitalist one ever read by a Finance Minister. “The FM has mastered the jargon of capitalist economics. Read her speech again: count the number of times she used the words digital, portal, IT-based, paperless, database, ecosystem, global, atmanirbhar. The word ‘poor’ occurs twice in paragraph 6, and we thank the FM for remembering that there are poor people in this country,” he said.

‘Corporates benefit much’

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement that the budget has proposed a growth in total expenditure by ₹ 1,74,909 crore from the revised estimates of 2021-22 but as percentage of GDP the total expenditure has come down from 17.8 per cent in 2020-21 to 15.3 per cent in 2022-23 budget estimates. “The growth of revenue receipts has primarily grown as corporates were able to accumulate profits during the pandemic reflected through increased corporation tax realisation and also garnered through GST and hike in petroleum prices from indirect taxes levied upon common people. However the growth of expenditure is far short from the growth of revenue receipts and in real terms is even less than what it was in last year’s revised estimates,” the party said.

The CPI’s national secretariat said overall allocation for agriculture and allied activities has gone down from 4.26 per cent to 3.84 per cent. “No assurance has been made on MSP. It is also clear that the fiscal deficit will go up. For the middle-class, there is no concession in tax, etc. which means that they will continue to suffer. Thus, the Budget has not addressed any of the current economic challenges. It is directed only to serve corporate and big business houses,” the CPI statement said.

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