New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday slammed the budget presented by Nirmala Sitharaman and said that FM has mastered the jargon of capitalist economics.
While addressing a press conference, he said that today's budget speech was the most ‘capitalist’ speech ever read by a Finance Minister.
"Today's budget speech was the most capitalist speech to be ever read by an FM. The word 'poor' occurs only twice in para 6 and we thank FM for remembering that there are poor people in this country; people will reject this capitalist budget," said Chidambaram, as quoted by news agency ANI.
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While expressing his views on the announcements made by Nirmala Sitharaman today, Chidambaram also said that he was “shocked” to see FM Nirmala Sitharaman outlining a plan for the next 25 years.
"I was astonished, shocked that the Finance Minister was outlining a plan for the next 25yrs. Government seems to believe that the present does not need any attention and the public can be asked to wait patiently until 'Amrit Kaal' dawns. This is mocking the people of India," he said.
Meanwhile, Chidambaram took a jibe saying that this budget is for the rich people.
"That's obviously on the behest of very rich people. Instead of RBI, Finance Minister has virtually announced that cryptocurrency is legal from today. This is not beneficial to 99.99 per cent of the people," said the former finance minister, as quoted by ANI.
While slamming the government for not delivering on the issues that matter to the people, he also took on Twitter to share his detailed opening statement on the Budget 2022.
From 2004 to 2014, Chidambaram has served as the finance minister of India four times.