‘BJP wooing middle class, Bihar’: P Chidambaram, Congress leaders slam Union Budget 2025

The Congress leader pointed to shortfalls in financial performance for the current year (2024-25), highlighting a cut of ₹1.04 lakh crore in total expenditure and ₹92,682 crore in capital expenditure. Critical sectors such as health, education, rural development, and social welfare bore the brunt of these reductions, he said at the presser.

“The cruelest cuts,” Chidambaram added, “were in allocations for SCs, STs, OBCs, and minorities,” citing drastic reductions in schemes such as the PM Anysuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana, the Post Matric Scholarship for SCs, and the Programme for Development of STs.

“The government claims to have improved the fiscal deficit to 4.8% from 4.9%, but this was achieved at a huge cost to the economy,” he said, questioning the government’s ability to meet its capital expenditure targets.

Chidambaram claimed that the government has abandoned many of flagship programmes “that were once announced with much fanfare” and added that the ability to implement these schemes has also declined.

The former finance minister also noted that neither Nirmala Sitharaman nor the Prime Minister had heeded the Chief Economic Adviser’s recommendations in the Economic Survey, which urged the government to step back and allow the private sector to drive growth.

“The FM is walking on the worn-out path. She is not willing to break free as we did in 1991 and 2004. She is not willing to de-regulate. She is not willing to get out of the way of the people, especially the entrepreneurs and the MSMEs and the start-ups,” he said.

Chidambaram concluded by stating that at best, this Budget will keep the economy moving along the same sluggish path, delivering no more than a 6 to 6.5% growth rate in 2025-26.

“That, in our view, is a government with no new ideas and no will to reach beyond its grasp,” he concluded.

The Opposition has framed the Union Budget 2025-26 as a pre-election sop strategy, targeting key voter bases while ignoring structural economic concerns. As Bihar heads to polls later this year, Congress leaders see the Budget as a BJP bid to win over crucial state votes rather than addressing long-term economic challenges. “A flow show” is what the party has called the Budget.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter, calling the Budget a “band-aid for bullet wounds.” He criticised the government’s lack of structural reforms and said, “Amid global uncertainty, solving our economic crisis demanded a paradigm shift. But this government is bankrupt of ideas.”

Shashi Tharoor asks about jobs

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor expressed concern over the absence of key economic issues in Sitharaman’s speech. “We didn’t even hear the words ‘unemployment’ or ‘inflation’ from the Finance Minister today,” he said.

Tharoor acknowledged that the middle class, particularly those earning up to Rs 12 lakh, had reason to be happy but remarked, “If you don’t have a job, it’s unclear from this Budget where the job opportunities will come from.” He also accused the BJP of using the Budget to gain electoral mileage in Bihar, despite advocating ‘One Nation, One Election.’

Jairam Ramesh: ‘What have the locals got?’

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh labelled the Budget an exercise in grabbing headlines. “Vocals have got relief, but what have the locals got?” he asked.

He pointed to stagnant wages, a declining rate of private investment, and a burdensome GST structure as key economic issues ignored in the Budget. “Mass consumption and the rate of private investment have not increased; GST has become complicated, and it has become a burden. There are unbridled imports from China, which are destroying the MSME sector,” Ramesh added.

Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ramesh called him a “Headlinejivi” Prime Minister, stating, “But when the reality begins to sink in, people will realise this budget doesn’t address the real issues of inequality, price rise, MGNREGA, stagnant wages, lack of private investment, tax terrorism, and freedom from tax authorities.”

He concluded his remarks with a question: “What did the locals, the farmers, the workers, and the small businesses get?”

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