Budget poll-oriented, says Opposition

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Opposition — including the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) — has termed the 'Vote on Account Budget-2021-2022' as "election oriented".

Talking to the media at the Assembly premises after the Budget speech of Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the Assam Assembly on Friday, MLA Rupjyoti Kurmi (Congress ) said, "There is nothing in the 'Vote on Account Budget-2021-2022'. It simply reflects Mungerilal's Hasin Swapna. For example, it does not have any vision to tackle the rising unemployment situation in the State. Nor does it have any statistics on the number of recruitments in various government departments in the last five years of the BJP-led government.

"The Budget appears attractive. But the fact remains that it won't provide relief to the common people. The Finance Minister has not addressed the rising prices of essential commodities. Moreover, no step has been mentioned to check the repeated hikes in power tariffs and land-related taxes."

MLA Kamalakshya Dey Purkayastha (Congress) said, "The Budget placed today is misleading on many fronts. Besides, it has repeated many points that were already mentioned in the very first Budget of the present BJP-led government way back in 2016-17. This proves that the government has failed to implement many of its earlier promised schemes.

"A government's Budget should reflect its income and expenditures in a particular fiscal. But, the 'Vote on Account-2021-2022' appears like a five-year planning of the State's economy. This has been done keeping in view the forthcoming Assembly elections.

MLA Aminul Islam (AIUDF) said, "The Budget presented today offers only lollipops to the masses. It is designed to woo the electorates. The Budget proposes to reduce the fuel prices in the State. But why is this move proposed just before the elections? It should have been done much earlier to provide relief to the masses.

"The present BJP-led government has failed in two main areas. It hasn't been able to take any step to arrest unemployment and also totally failed to boost industrialization.

"Besides, today's Budget has not pointed out its vision plan to tackle the heavy burden of loans on the State government."

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