The Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) has dubbed the NDA Government’s Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as ‘anti-common man’ and ‘pro-capitalist.
Addressing a press conference here on Sunday G.V. Sriram Reddy, CPI(M) General Secretary and S. Prasannakumar, State Secretariat member, said that the allocation to the welfare schemes had been slashed considerably. The tax concessions extended to the corporate sector and the rich goes to show that the NDA Government was expressing its token of gratitude to the donors for the donations received.
Mr. Reddy said that the budget presented was ‘tailor made’ to woo the capitalist ignoring the interest and welfare of a poor and the common people. “The tax concessions extended to corporate sector amounted to Rs. 5.86 lakh crores, which was higher than the fiscal deficit.
The NDA Government has also meted out injustice to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes with reduced allocation from the mandatory 8.8 percent to 5.5 percent for Tribal Sub plan. The budget was also silent on giving thrust to production and employment generation,” he pointed out.
Referring to the Railway budget, Mr. Reddy criticised the Government for hiking freight charges, which in turn affected the common man.