The Congress has strongly criticized the Union Budget. The main opposition party described it as focused on efforts to woo 3.2 crore middle class taxpayers of the country and 7.65 crore voters in Bihar. Elections will be held in Bihar later this year. The party said that the rest of India has been given much less than the budget. Chief Ministers of several states, including Tamil Nadu’s MK Stalin and his counterpart Siddaramaiah, criticized the budget, accusing them of ignoring the needs of his states and termed it as Bihar -centric.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram criticized the Union Budget, saying that the Chief Economic Advisor had given very good advice to the government in his economic review, but neither the Finance Minister nor the Prime Minister paid attention to his advice.
He said that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman does not want to make economic reforms like 1991 and 2004. In this budget, there has been an attempt to woo the voters of the middle class and Bihar and the rest of India has been given only consolation. According to Chidambaram, this government will continue to run on the old pattern, which will only see a growth rate of 6 or 6.5 percent in the upcoming financial year, which is much lower than the 8 percent growth rate required to make India a developed nation.
Chidambaram told reporters, “It is clear from the budget that the BJP is trying to woo the middle class and Bihar voters.” He said, ‘These announcements will be welcomed by 3.2 crore taxpayers of middle class and 7.65 crore voters of Bihar. For the rest of India, the Finance Minister had only consolation words.