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Budget fails to address recession: opposition parties
Monday, 16 February 2009, 21:54 IST
New Delhi: The interim budget presented by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had failed to address the economic recession, most opposition parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left, said Monday.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Basudeb Acharya said the budget did not address the key issues facing the country.
"There is nothing in the interim budget to address the major problems being faced by the nation, including job cuts and other implications of the economic meltdown."
He added that what acting finance minister Mukherjee had presented was a "repetition of President Pratibha Patil's opening address to the budget session" of parliament.
According to Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta: "It is an election budget; it is a Sonia (Gandhi) budget and the platform of the parliament has been misused to launch the (Congress party's) election crusade."
Expressing his party's disappointment, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the interim budget aimed to confuse the people of the country.
"It is a temporary budget by a temporary central government and a temporary finance minister. Instead of giving any relief to the common man, the budget aims to confuse people," Naqvi told IANS.
The budget "does not reflect any economic stability and has been prepared keeping in view the upcoming Lok Sabha elections", he added.
Convenor of the BJP-led National Democratic Aliance (NDA), Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal-United, said the government had claimed that "it had done lots of things for youth, farmers and aam aadmi (common man). Actually, it has not done anything at all for these sections".
He described it as a "desperate budget".
Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman welcomed the budget but said the government should have give more attention of agriculture. "Farmers should be given more power and water at cheap rates," he said.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS