Chidambaram forced into speaking lines given by Rahul Gandhi: BJP

Branding senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram as the Finance Minister of the 'Corporate sector', the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said the former was forced to speak the lines given by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

"P. Chidambaram is being forced to speak the lines given by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who himself doesn't understand anything about the Budget" BJP leader G. V. L. Narsimha Rao told ANI.

Rao further asserted that that during Chidambaram's tenure in the UPA regime the entire Budget was focused upon putting money into the pockets of the corporate sectors.

"Chidambaram is the Finance Minister for the corporate sector of this country. Under his charge the entire Budget focused on putting money into the pockets of the corporate sectors. They only dreamt of the rich, they only planned for the corporate sector,"

Firmly rejecting the criticism by the Congress towards the Budget, especially that of Chidambaram, the BJP leader said that for the first time all the sections of the society feel that the Budget fulfils their aspirations.

Chidambaram on Thursday, while commending the budget for not being reckless, said that the Union Budget had done nothing to boost demand, something that would have been possible if indirect taxes had been slashed.

"It is obvious that demonetisation and its inevitable consequences have demoralised the government. Government has retreated from reforms," he said in a press meet here.

He said that Budget has failed to deliver anything for those who lost their money and jobs post-demonetisation and claimed the note recall and its consequences have "demoralised the government" and forced it to "retreat from reforms".

Moreover, he described the tax cut as tokenism and said 1.98 crore taxpayers have got a relief of Rs 5,000 per person.

"It is small mercy for a person who stood in a queue for many hours for many weeks to withdraw small amounts of money from his or her account," he said.