Chandigarh: Calling it a major disappointment for all sections of society, Punjab ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Tuesday strongly criticised the Union budget for what he held ``neglecting the concerns of women, poor and farmers and completely disregarding the interests of Punjab''.
The Punjab vidhan sabha Speaker Kultar Singh also hit out at the budget saying that Punjab and agriculture, both mainstays of the country have been completely ignored and sidelined in the Union budget. The budget was a mere ritual and the document was devoid of any concrete measures for the most urgent needs of agriculture support and revival across the nation, he held.
Senior AAP leader and spokesperson Neel Garg held that neither anything has been given to women in the budget nor there is any special provision for the poor, laborers and farmers.
He said the MSP guarantee wasn't even mentioned during the budget speech, while the farmers of Punjab have been sitting on the Haryana border for the last several months.
`SARKAR BACHAO BUDGET’
Principal opposition party Congress state chief and MP Amarinder Singh Raja Warring criticised the budget terming it as a "Sarkar Bachao Budget,". He said that it was designed to appease the various parties within the NDA coalition rather than addressing the pressing issues faced by the people of the nation.
He expressed his disappointment over the budget's neglect of Punjab and said that the states like Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were mentioned in the budget, but Punjab, a border state and the food bowl of the nation, a crucial contributor to the military, agriculture, and MSMEs, received no mention. Special infrastructure funds were allocated for Bihar due to the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections there, he added.
The Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa also lashed out at the BJP-led NDA government in the Centre for completely disregarding Punjab and the farming sector in the Budget 2024. He said that Punjab is not only the border state but also the food bowl of India, however, the Union Finance Ministry failed to announce a single special package for Punjab.
`DISCRIMINATORY TOWARDS PUNJAB’
Opposition party, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal said the budget was discriminatory towards Punjab and had failed to address any of the demands of the state. He said “no allocation has been made for much needed diversification or debt waiver for farmers of the state. This despite the fact that groundwater depletion is at an all time low and there is a realisation that the farmer needs to be incentivised to shift away from paddy cultivation”.
