PM Modi meets top ministers to discuss govt's strategy in Parliament

In view of the third day of the Budget session of the Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with the top minister to discuss the government's strategy in the Parliament on Friday.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, and Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal are in the meeting.

On Thursday, the government presented the interim Budget for 2024-25.

The government said that the Budget was presented with a focus on economic policies that foster growth, facilitate inclusive development, improve productivity, and create opportunities for various sections while noting that it will pay utmost attention to the eastern region including states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal to make them growth engines as part of goal to make India a developed country by 2047.

No change was proposed in the tax rates in the interim budget with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing that the government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population and that it will present a white paper on the economic performance of 10 years of BJP-led government compared to previous 10 years of Congress-led UPA government.

This was the last budget of the Modi government in its second term with Lok Sabha polls expected in April-May this year. Sitharaman, who presented her sixth budget in Lok Sabha, expressed confidence in the BJP-led NDA coming to power again.

Opposition parties slammed the budget with Congress leader P Chidambaram stating that the Finance Minister had not talked about unemployment and that the fundamental flaw in the NDA's approach to the economy and governance is that "it is biased in favour of the rich".

"It is a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich," he alleged. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said the interim budget lacked accountability and vision.