Inequality extreme, govt weakening rights, Budget for privileged: Opp

“Nearly 34% of Indians survive on less than Rs 100 a day. This is the Modi era,” he said.
He flagged that “youth unemployment has reached 15% and regular salaried employment has declined from 22.8% to 22.7%.”

The situation for women was “worse”, he said, adding, “Only 10.5% of rural women work in the service sector. And one in four urban women who want to work cannot find a job.”

Comparing the parameters with that of UPA years, he said, “UPA believed in citizens’ rights. We gave Right to Work, Right to Employment, Right to Food, Right to Education, Right to Information. This government is dismantling all these rights. MGNREGA scrapped, RTI diluted, food security has been cut and forest rights violated.”

“No economy can grow sustainably in an atmosphere of fear and hatred… State-sponsored terror in the name bulldozer raj has become a new political tool,” he said.

TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee said the Budget speech was “full of sound and fury” but lacked in delivery. “West Bengal was denied due fiscal allocation in central schemes such as MGNREGA and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan on irrational grounds,” he said. “The West Bengal CM has written letters to the PM, but none have been answered.” He added, “Bengal has been ignored, Bengalis have been ignored.”

NC MP Aga Ruhulla Mehdi said, “Only Rs 100 crore has been earmarked for capital expenditure in J&K. How much progress can J&K make with that?” “Rs 10,000 crore have been allocated for the police, but tourism, MSMEs and tech sectors have been forgotten.”

He said, “nothing has been done for the horticulture sector which is the spine of Kashmir,” warning that lower tariffs on American fruits would hurt apple growers and “J&K’s apples will suffer”. “This appears to be a conspiracy to weaken Kashmir’s industry,” he said.

Hitting back, BJP MP Anurag Thakur launched a sharp attack on Rahul Gandhi, saying, “The electoral losses have filled him with hatred. He hates parliamentary rules, he hates the Speaker, he hates constitutional institutions, he hates the PM and now he has started hating India.” He said Congress had lost 95 elections under Gandhi’s leadership and will soon “hit a century of losses”.

Countering Gandhi’s “cho­ke­hold” remark about the trade deal, Thakur said, “During UPA, 11 of 12 banks were under the stranglehold of PCA framework. We recovered Rs 10 lakh crore in bad loans and gave banks a healthy balance sheet.” He accused Congress of giving “a free-pass to Chinese products”, saying, “They used to demote MSMEs, while Modi pr­omo­ted MSMEs.” LJP (RV)’s Arun Bharti welcomed the Budget, saying Bihar, which was once dismissed as a “Bimaru” state, is now emerging as pride of new India due to NDA policies.