After staging a walkout from the Lok Sabha in protest against an "inflationary" Union Budget, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said its members would oppose it when put to vote.
"We are going to oppose the Budget. Cut-motion is a prerogative available in the Lok Sabha and we will definitely bring it to censure the government on its anti-people policies," senior BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said.
He asserted that though there were several announcements in the Budget which were "anti-people", when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced customs duty on petroleum products "he crossed the limit of tolerance of the people" and the party "spontaneously" decided to stage a walkout.
When asked if staging a walkout against the Budget was against Parliamentary propriety, Sinha said one such propriety has been broken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has not become a member of the Lok Sabha for the last six years.
BJP maintained that if it were to present the Budget, it would not have touched petroleum prices and "hastened slowly".
Sinha said increase in prices of petrol and diesel by almost the same amount is a "fundamentally flawed approach" as increasing diesel prices had a high cascading effect.
"Diesel is used in the transport (people and goods) sector, by the farmers and also in factories," he said. Agriculture, rural development, health and education should have been the priority areas for Mukherjee, Sinha said alleging that the Finance Minister had sprinkled resources thinly over several sectors.
The former Finance Minister claimed that Indian economy is growing mainly due to domestic demand generated by its people and high savings made by them. "These two are the engines of growth of Indian economy and most important consideration should be given to them to allow the economy to grow," he said.
Sinha enumerated three conditions which he asserted should be satisfied to stimulate domestic demand and increase savings by the people.
"Prices should be kept under control, there should be easier availability of funds and there should be money in people's pockets," Sinha said, adding, "The biggest challenge for the Finance Minister is to check price rise, especially of essential commodities."
He insisted that by announcing the new taxes, government had "added fat to fire". Sinha accused the Finance Minister of giving up instead of fighting price rise. BJP also argued that there was no mention of how the government intended to tackle unemployment.
Similarly, there was nothing on handling the agrarian crisis or for infrastructure development, with only four minor schemes being announced for the latter. Even the power structure had been ignored which would affect both agriculture and industry, Sinha said.
He accused the Finance Minister of fudging figures to show a lesser fiscal deficit. "We are sincerely but gravely disappointed with the budget," he said.
Budget is anti-poor: Modi
Describing the Union Budget as "vision-lacking one" to help make India emerge as the global economic superpower, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi termed it as "anti-poor and anti-common man".
"During the last five years, Congress-led UPA government had been saying that as they were taking the support of the Left parties they could not initiate economic reforms. But why have they not initiated any financial sector reform this time," Modi questioned. "There is total absence of a visionary action plan for developing India as the global economic superpower in this budget," Modi said while reacting to the Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
"The increase in fuel prices is an insult to common people who are already reeling under the massive burden of price rise. This will fuel inflation and increase the difficulties of poor as well as middle class," Modi said.
He said budget will halt the development of progressive states like Gujarat. "Manufacturing sector has a great contribution in the progress of Gujarat. However, by increase of Central excise on manufacturing sector, the Central government has created a new problem for the industries here," he added. Gujarat's textile industry has been given a death blow by the Centre in this Budget, Modi said.
"The Central government has decided to give Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) special package to textile industry of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu which is a state ruled by UPA. While on the name of pollution the same Central government has decided not to give permission to set up 60 new units in Gujarat," Modi said.
He further said that Central government's decision to increase Central import duty on gold and silver will adversely impact gems and jewellery business in Gujarat. Modi said government has given Rs 200-crore for beach development in Goa, while Gujarat, which has 1,600-kms-long coastline, has been totally ignored.
"This budget is anti-Gujarat and it will adversely impact industrial development of the state," Modi said. He further alleged that the Central government lacks the will to give food security to people of the country.
