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Floor leaders of the Opposition bloc -- Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) -- will hold a meeting on Friday at the office of the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, to draw up a floor strategy for the ongoing Budget session.
The meeting will be held at 10 am to chalk out the strategy for the floor of the House. On Thursday, the government presented the Union Budget for 2024-25. The government said that the Budget was presented with a focus on economic policies that foster growth, facilitate inclusive development, improve productivity, and create opportunities for various sections while noting that it will pay utmost attention to the eastern region including states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal to make them growth engines as part of goal to make India a developed country by 2047. No change was proposed in the tax rates in the interim budget with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing that the government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population and that it will present a white paper on the economic performance of 10 years of BJP-led government compared to previous 10 years of Congress-led UPA government. This was the last budget of the Modi government in its second term with Lok Sabha polls expected in April-May this year. Sitharaman, who presented her sixth budget in Lok Sabha, expressed confidence in the BJP-led NDA coming to power again. Opposition parties slammed the budget with Congress leader P Chidambaram stating that the Finance Minister had not talked about unemployment and that the fundamental flaw in the NDA's approach to the economy and governance is that "it is biased in favour of the rich". "It is a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich," he alleged. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said the interim budget lacked accountability and vision. In his reaction, Chidambaram said the Finance Minister is not acknowledge" the rampant unemployment" and did not utter a word on how the government intended to address the problem. "By deliberate neglect over the last 10 years, the government has destroyed the demographic dividend story and dashed the hopes of millions of youth and their families," he said. Kharge said, "There was nothing for the poor, lower middle-class, and middle-class citizens in the interim budget" and the government did not state how many of the promises it had made had been fulfilled. TMC MP Santanu Sen said there is nothing in the interim budget and "there is no direction,". "There is no mention of poverty, no discussion to halt in employment," he said. (ANI)
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