Relieved over largesse-free interim Budget, Congress raises ‘rampant’ unemployment, ‘widening’ inequality, inflation

Presenting the Congress critique of the Budget with Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi, former finance minister P Chidambaram unveiled the talking points. He said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about youth but not unemployment, mentioned GDP but not per capita income, talked about free grain to 80 crore people but made no mention of India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index and barely referred to inflation but did not mention that food inflation is currently 7.7 per cent.

Asked about the confidence shown by both Prime Minister Modi and Sitharaman of the BJP returning to power, Chidambaram interestingly replied, “Nobody votes on one issue. We maintain our charge that this government is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. This government has practically forgotten the bottom 50 per cent of the people. We will take this message to the people.

“But the people have several messages coming to them. Economic messages, political messages, religious messages, cultural messages…What message will prevail with which voter I cannot say, but we hope that the people of India recognise that their economic situation could have been considerably better…it is worse because of the 10 years of the NDA government.”

The Congress was scathing in its criticism on several fronts, especially on jobs and income inequalities.

Referring to the findings of the Periodic Labour Force Survey and State of Working India Report, Chidambaram said, “The FM did not acknowledge the rampant unemployment and did not utter a word on how the government intended to address the problem. By deliberate neglect over the last 10 years, the government has destroyed the demographic dividend story and dashed the hopes of millions of youth and their families.”

“The FM spoke about farmers. Every farmer will tell you a story of how he or she is unhappy doing farming. The FM did not reveal the number of suicides among farmers, including agricultural labour. The FM did not even acknowledge the causes for the plight of the farmers: rising input costs, insufficient and uncertain MSP, biased import and export policies, and crop insurance that is either absent or denied. Under the NDA’s 10-year rule, a happy farmer is an oxymoron,” he added.

He claimed that the fundamental flaw in the NDA’s approach to the economy and governance was that it is biased in favour of the rich. The government, he said, talks about GDP growth but is silent on the per capita income growth. “If the GDP is growing at such a high rate, why is the per income growing at half that rate…One of those two numbers is suspect,” he said.

On Sitharaman’s announcement that the government would bring out a white paper on “where we were” before 2014 and where India stands today, Chidambaram said, “We welcome the white paper. We respond to the white paper. We are today responding to the 63-page mini economic survey and the 32-page budget speech. If a 100-page white paper comes, we will respond to that also. We are not afraid of a white paper.”

Kharge, on the other hand, asked the government counter questions.

“How many of the promises made by the government in the last 10 years have been fulfilled? How did the agricultural growth rate, which was 4.6 per cent in 2014 plunged to 1.8 per cent this year? Why are 31 farmers forced to commit suicide every day? How did the spending on education, which was 4.55 per cent of the total budget in 2014, fall to 3.2 per cent? Why is the share of SC, ST, OBC & Minority welfare continuously falling compared to the total budget? Why are defence spending and healthcare spending declining by the year? Why is the unemployment rate highest in 45 years? Why has the unemployment rate hit a peak of 45.5 per cent for youth aged 20-24?” he asked.