BJP Flays Budget; Cong Showers Praises on FM

BJP has described the Budget for fiscal 2009-10 as timid, tepid and unimpressive while the ruling Congress admired Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for doing an “excellent job”.

“I do not see any great message in the budget. It is timid, tepid and unimpressive,” senior BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said.

On the contrary, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari termed the budget ideal saying, “The Budget is a very judicious mix of short term stimulus, medium term prudence and long term structural reforms.”

“The Finance Minister has done an excellent job in times of global economic recession as no taxes have been imposed on the people,” he told reporters outside Parliament House soon after the Budget was presented.

In response to the question as to why the market reacted negatively, Tewari said that the Finance Minister while presenting budget does not only look at the market. As for the fiscal deficit, he said that following stimulus packages granted in December last year to tackle recession, deficit went up.

Earlier, JDU MPs stage a walk out in the Lok Sabha in protest against the step-motherly treatment meted out to Bihar in the Union Budget.

Soon after Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee finished his Budget speech, JDU leader Sharad Yadav stood up protesting lack of any relief and rehabilitation for those affected by Kosi floods in the state last year and led his MPs out of Lok Sabha.

Similarly, Bihar Chief Minister and JDU leader Nitish Kumar, too, flayed the Budget terming it as a betrayal with the people of Bihar.

“MP’s from NDA (National Democratic Alliance) will not sit quietly in Parliament. I have no issues with relief for Aila victims but why has be forgotten the victims of Kosi flood victims?” Nitish Kumar reacted in Patna.

Even Rashtriya Janata Dal chief RJD supremo Lalu Prasad raised the issue of relief and rehabilitation of Kosi floods but he did not join JD(U) MPs in staging a walkout.