Opposition on Budget: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, and Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi were among those who demonstrated on Parliament grounds.
Leaders of the INDIA group protested today both inside and outside of Parliament against what they see as “discrimination” towards states ruled by the opposition in the recently released Union Budget.
Opposition on Budget Rahul’s View:
The Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, criticised the 2024–25 Budget on 23 July, calling it a “Kursi Bachao” process that appeases friends and cronies while providing no assistance for the average Indian and merely copying and pasting his party’s manifesto and prior budgets.
Rahul wrote in a post on X, “-Appease Allies: Hollow promises to them at the cost of other states. – Appease Cronies: Benefits to AA with no relief for the common Indian. – Copy and Paste: Congress manifesto and previous budgets”
Opposition on Budget AAP’s View:
Sanjay Singh, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, claimed that the administration simply failed to address crucial issues. “MGNREGA [the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] was not mentioned. “People have no reason to be happy,” Singh stated. “The share market has fallen since the Budget was presented. This indicates that the market did not like the Budget. Farmers in the country expected the MSP for their crops to be quadrupled, but the government made no provision for this.”
Akhilesh Yadav’s View:
Akhilesh Yadav, the chairman of the Samajwadi Party (SP), claimed that the problems of young, women, farmers, unemployment, and inflation have disappeared. “This Budget is a bundle of hopelessness as well. Thankfully, despite terrible circumstances, people are still alive.
S. Pawar’s View:
Sharadchandra Pawar from the Nationalist Congress Party wrote on X that the Modi government has failed to deliver on its promise of job creation. “No new solutions to provide employment. …the youth of Maharashtra will not rest without teaching a lesson to the BJP in the coming assembly elections.”
Mallikarjun’s View:
Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of Congress, referred to the budget as disappointing. “The budget is distributed just to save the chair; it is not need-based. Just two people were happy with the budget, which disregarded the interests of 140 crore Indians. According to Kharge, every group was disregarded by the budget, including youth, farmers, middle-class people, Scheduled Castes (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST).
Overview:
The opposition charged that the administration was ignoring other states and preferring Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, two states run by the BJP’s main allies and vital to the survival of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. On Tuesday, ₹59,000 crore worth of projects and packages for Bihar were revealed by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. She said that Andhra Pradesh would receive 15,000 crore for the building of the state capital, Amaravati, as well as additional funding if needed, to complete the Polavaram dam project and build two industrial hubs.
