Interim budget proposals nothing but jugglery of words: Trinamool Congress

Kolkata, Feb 1 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress has said that the proposals in the Interim Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday are "nothing but jugglery of words". 

"The budget does not have any proposal for relief to the common people. At the same time, the net gain of West Bengal from the budget proposals is zero. In one sentence this is a budget of unfulfilled promises and jugglery of words," said Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu criticized the budget proposal for allegedly neglecting the education sector in the state. "I wonder whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aware of the crisis that the state’s education sector is going through. There is no increase in budgetary allocation for the sector," he said.

The state BJP, on the other hand, accused the Trinamool Congress of "unnecessarily politicising the issue by comparing apples and oranges, since interim budget or vote-on-accounts cannot be equated with regular budget".

Reputed teacher of economics P.K. Mukhopadhyay also said that there is "no scope for much policy announcements in an interim budget".

"Some are criticizing the Union government for keeping the direct tax structure intact. But as rightly explained by the Union Finance Minister there is no scope for doing that (changing it) in an interim budget. We will have to wait for policy announcements when the full budget will be presented in July this year," Mukhopadhyay said.

He said that the sphere that gives an indication that even the interim budget is election-centric is the government's focus on farmers, youth and women.

"The focus on eastern and northeastern states in the budget speech on Thursday is a reflection of how important these states are for the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls," he said.

--IANS

src/sha