Budget “betrayal” with people, says AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party slammed the Delhi Budget presented on Friday terming it “complete betrayal” with the people of the Capital.

“The budget presented by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Lok Sabha is a complete betrayal with the residents of the Capital, who have been cheated by the BJP-led government once again,” said the party in a statement.

“The BJP had during the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections promised 30 per cent reduction in electricity tariffs, but despite having got a proper opportunity to do so, it finally failed to deliver on its promise, proving that the promise was merely to hoodwink the people,” the party added.

Importantly the AAP also highlighted what it termed “contradiction” in the Union Finance Minister’s stand on the issue of subsidy.

“It is none other than Mr. Jaitley himself, who had mocked the AAP Government for providing electricity and water subsidy in a public statement on January 1 this year,” the party said.

Jaitley slammed

The AAP had also shared the visual grab of a blog it claimed was of Mr. Jaitley, in which he had slammed the then AAP government when it had announced power subsidy, to expose his alleged doublespeak on the issue.

“While presenting the Delhi budget on Friday, Mr. Jaitley has done exactly the opposite of what he used to say earlier, but what is shocking is that the subsidy announced by him is exactly what the Sheila Dikshit Government used to give and nothing more,” the party added.

The party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal said the budget failed to deal with the main issues grappling the city. He argued that the budget had no mention on how the rising prices of essential commodities would be brought down and how corruption would be dealt with. Mr. Kejirwal claimed that both had “substantially come down” during the 49-days of AAP government early this year.

“No mention in budget on how people will get relief from rising prices of vegetables,” Mr. Kejriwal tweeted.

“There was no mention of how corruption would be reduced, which has increased a lot since the fall of AAP government. Similarly the budget has nothing on how water starved areas in Delhi would get water. Neither does it talk about how tanker mafia would be controlled,” tweeted the former Chief Minister of Delhi.