Charging that the Budget had ignored the 'aam aadmi', on Thursday said the government failed miserably to address price rise and inflation that would bring down the economic growth rate.
Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha (BJP), who initiated the debate on Budget in the Lok Sabha, said the government had forgotten about the common man, the poor and the rural population of the country and had announced measures that would benefit the rich.
"What I say may not be palatable to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, but there is nothing personal in it. The Budget usually indicates economic challenges of the time and how to tide over them. But the Budget speech makes no mention of price rise or inflation as a challenge that the country faces today," Sinha said in his hour-long speech.
He noted that Mukherjee mentioned only achieving 9 per cent growth rate and marching into double-digit figures in the coming years, to make development more inclusive and removing bottlenecks in social welfare programmes as the challenges that the government would address in the coming fiscal.
"The only good news in the Budget is that toy balloons have become cheaper. Now, a child wanting to reside in the Indira Awas Yogana that would get electricity under the Rajiv Gandhi Gram Vidhyutkaran programme will go to the cities using the Jawarharlal Nehru Rural road, but his mother would tell him there is no roti to feed him, but only toy balloons," he said.
Referring to the hike in the prices of fertilisers, Sinha said Cabinet Minister K Alagiri, who held the portfolio, had himself opposed the move, indicating "dilution of collective responsibility" of the government.
The former finance minister said government had pumped in money into the economy with the electoral battle in mind and was withdrawing the same soon after coming back to power.
"For the UPA, 'aam aadmi' are people who earn Rs 25,000 a month and not those earning just Rs 25 a day. Now they can crush the people, loot them and suck their blood," he added.
Attacking the government on the development front, Sinha alleged that the UPA had not launched any big ticket infrastructure project during its first tenure.
The government thinks 'all izz (is) well'," he said, borrowing a line from the Aamir Khan blockbuster '3 Idiots'. K S Rao (Congress) said his party decided to increase the Minimum Support Price to do justice to farmers.
Referring to the rise in prices of petroleum prices in the country, he said when international crude oil prices go up, the rates have to be revised here too. "Price rise is more a discussion in Parliament than a reality in villages," he added.
Brij Bhushan Singh (SP) said the budget has imposed an additional tax of Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) on the people. "It is anti-poor and pro-capitalist," he said.
