Kerala Budget 2024 | Opposition Leader accuses Finance Minister of regurgitating old promises and papering over State’s dire economic situation
The Hindu
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in Kerala has accused the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of delivering a Budget that sought to paper over Kerala’s dire economic situation by regurgitating empty promises. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan termed Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal’s nearly two-hour Budget speech on February 5 (Monday) an election-eve screed that targeted the Opposition to conceal the government’s alarming fiscal failures.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in Kerala has accused the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of delivering a Budget that sought to paper over Kerala’s dire economic situation by regurgitating empty promises.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan termed Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal’s nearly two-hour Budget speech on February 5 (Monday) an election-eve screed that targeted the Opposition to conceal the government’s alarming fiscal failures.
He said Mr. Balagopal had relegated the Budget to the subaltern status of a worn-out political statement speckled with cliched, obsolete and hollow-sounding communist jargon.
Mr. Satheesan said Mr. Balagopal destroyed the Budget’s sanctity and used the presentation in the Assembly as a bully pulpit to demonise the Opposition repeatedly.
He said Mr. Balagopal used the heavily politicised Budget speech as a fig leaf to cover the embarrassing fact that almost 50% of the funds earmarked for plan expenditure in critical sectors, including social welfare, remained unspent.
Mr. Satheesan said successive Budgets presented by Mr. Balagopal seemed built on sand because the government lacked the economic heft to implement the fiscal proposals.
Mr. Satheesan said the Budget dealt the declining rubber-growing sector a mortal blow by not substantially hiking the production incentive for nearly 13 lakh small-scale cultivators on the brink of penury.
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