Biju Janata Dal lawmaker in the Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahtab invoked writer Charles Dickens and said people had “great expectations” from the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 1, but it fell short because it did not address issues such as job creation and economic growth. Mahtab mentioned another of Dickens’ work, A Tale of Two Cities, to point out that things must have changed a lot since the National Democratic Alliance came to power because the central government seemed to claim everything was happening for the first time. He, however, welcomed the advancement of the Budget presentation saying it would help improve fund allocation to ministries and to states.
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