Neither shaken nor stirred

POLITICS OF THE BUDGET: The Budget has left all sections of Parliament dissatisfied.

From the point of view of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), it was only the first 45 minutes of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s speech that was worth talking about — he spoke just about the achievements of the UPA government over the last five years.

Though shorter than his last Budget speech — one hour thirty-five minutes in 1984 — he spoke today for almost one hour 20 minutes, but the Interim Budget left all sections of Parliament neither stirred nor shaken.

The Congress-led government, which desisted from announcing another fiscal stimulus package through the Interim Budget, however, made no effort to hide its light behind a bushel and made much of political slogans centering around the aam aadmi through the Budget. “The Indian people have seen how the aam aadmi has become the focus of the development process. I have no doubt that when the time comes, our people will recognise the hand that made it all possible — the hand that alone can help our nation on the road to peace and prosperity,” Mukherjee said in his concluding part of the Budget.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too, sounded the election bugle. “The Interim Budget is a fine balancing act between the need to restore the economy to its optimum growth path and the constitutional constraints of a pre-election budget. I have no doubt that the continued stimulus for the various flagship programmes of the government will provide relief to all sections – specially the aam aadmi,” he said.

Along with the Bhartiya Janata Party, the CPI(M) slammed the Budget for not taking action to tackle the global meltdown. “The government appears to be in a state of complete denial of the impact of the global meltdown. The government could have used the Budget to increase its expenditure,” said Sitaram Yechuri, politburo member of the CPI(M).

But Mukherjee refused to accept these allegations and told reporters, “Already the Prime Minister has announced two fiscal stimulus packages. Its full effects will be seen very soon. Whatever had to be done has already been done.”

While there were no disruptions during the minister’s speech, the BJP and Left members started shouting and demanded measures for the aam aadmi as soon as the speech was over. Mukherjee also justified the government’s approach towards the Budget later and said “constitutional constraints” didn’t allow him to announce further measures. The Left parties, however, were not amused. Sitaram Yechuri led the charges against the government saying that it had actually reduced its Budget for the social sector. “If we compare the revised estimates in 2008-09 and the allocations in the Interim Budget, in NREGA the government will spend Rs 6,650 crore less. In rural development, there is a cut of Rs 5,176 crore in allocations while in urban development and food subsidies, there are decreases of Rs 1,735 crore and 1,328 crore, respectively.”

Yechuri also refused to buy Mukherjee’s argument and said, “The government needs to take more steps for the people of India. But it is going by the philosophy that if you make capital available at low interest, the economy will go. The fact is if people don’t have the power to buy, the situation will not improve.”

Mukherjee’s Budget, however, says budgetary support has been increased for the Department of Rural Mukherjee took up just the flagship programmes to showcase the increased allocations although he said, “Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.” A few hours after the Budget, even some Congress MPs admitted that this Interim Budget hadn’t given them anything to show to the voters.