Budget 2024: After Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the interim budget on Thursday, reactions started to pour in from several leaders across party lines. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government saying that this is saffron party's "farewell budget". Yadav took to social media platform X and said that if any budget is not for development and any development is not for the people then it is useless.
"If any budget is not for development and any development is not for the people then it is useless. The BJP government has created a shameful record by completing a decade of anti-people budgets, which will never be broken again because now is the time for a positive government to come. This is BJP's 'farewell budget'," Yadav said on X.
Speaking on the Interim Budget, Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said that it is a mere administrative exercise to ensure that the government of India has the requisite funds to carry on its normal business until the new parliament is constituted.
"Mere administrative exercise to ensure that the government of India has the requisite funds to carry on its normal business until the new parliament is constituted and a new government is formed. And that's what they have done, except for making their obligatory self-congratulatory, self-praise phrases, nothing else is there and nothing should have been there, and rightly so. Nothing is there," Karti Chidambaram said.
National Conference MP Farooq Abdullah said that the actual budget will come in July and exuded hope that tourism and industries will grow. "The actual budget will come in July. We hope that people will benefit, tourism will increase, industries will also grow and the nation will progress."
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor took a swipe at the Centre over the interim Budget and said that it had a lot of rhetorical language and was very little concrete in terms of implementation. The Congress MP further said that this is going to be a very disappointing speech in terms of being couched entirely in generalities and without enough substance.
"It was one of the shortest speeches on record in the Budget. Not very much came out of it. As usual a lot of rhetorical language, very little concrete on implementation...She talked about foreign investment without acknowledging that that investment has come down significantly. She talked about a number of things which are couched in vague language like 'confidence' and 'hope' and so on. But when it comes to hard figures, very few figures available...This is going to be a very disappointing speech in terms of being couched entirely in generalities and without enough substance nor any willingness to address the specific problems of the economy," Tharoor said.