Opposition Slams Budget As A “Great Betrayal”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday presented the Union Budget on Tuesday, which has left the opposition upset with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin calling it the “great betrayal”.

After the budget was announced Stalin made a scathing attack calling it a “great betrayal” adding that none of the demands put forth on behalf of Tamil Nadu including fund allocations for railways and the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) were considered.

Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, has not announced anything pertaining directly to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, or Karnataka. However, the government has covered some demands put forth by the states under overarching pan-India announcements.

Politicians from Karnataka and Kerala had earlier led protests in Delhi to demand their ‘tax dues’.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister sought funds for several developmental projects ahead of the Budget announcement on Tuesday. He also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February, calling for expedited approval of the second phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project.

“The people of Tamil Nadu are expecting the release of three years of pending funds for the Chennai Metro Rail, approval for the express flyover between Tambaram and Chengalpattu, a reduction in income tax, which has been a long-standing expectation of the middle class for the past 10 years, approval for the Coimbatore and Madurai metro rail projects, allocation of funds for pending projects under old and new railway schemes in Tamil Nadu, and an increase in the slab rate for houses being constructed under rural and urban housing development schemes,” he wrote.

The CM has also announced that he will not be attending the NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting that will be convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27, as the Union government “boycotted Tamil Nadu” in the budget.

Speaking at a press meet Stalin said he had set forth a few demands for Tamil Nadu. “They included funds allocation for the Chennai Metro Rail, approval of metro rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai, funds for railways projects that have already been announced and approval for an overhead expressway between Tambaram and Chengalpattu. But Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman has not announced any of these in the budget,” he said.

Stalin alleged that the Union government announced schemes only to satisfy certain state parties which are in alliance with it and helped the Bharatiya Janata Party, which failed to achieve a majority on its own, to form the government.

The Union budget had announced several packages for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, where the JD(U) and the TDP, respectively, are in alliance with the BJP. In the 2024 general elections, the BJP failed to cross the halfway mark, forcing it to depend on TDP and JD(U) in order to form the government. Stalin alleged that the Budget was largely to keep only these two parties happy.

“The Union government announced the CMRL project but has been deceiving us without allocating funds. There is no guarantee that the schemes announced for those states [Bihar and Andhra Pradesh] will actually be carried out,” Stalin said.

Referring to the impacts of the Cyclone Michaung and the floods that affected southern districts like Thoothukudi, Nagapattinam and Tirunelveli, Stalin added that the state government had requested around Rs 37,000 crore as disaster relief. So far the Union government has only given us Rs 276 crore.

“There are no special schemes in this budget for Tamil Nadu, none of our demands have been met and no new railway projects have been announced. The finance minister has forgotten about all the states except the two states that are holding up the BJP. A national budget has to be inclusive of all the states in the country. In that regard, this budget is mostly an injustice.”

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi took a dig at the budget calling it a “Kursi Bachao” Budget.

“Appease Allies: Hollow promises to them at the cost of other states. Appease Cronies: Benefits to AA with no relief for the common Indian. Copy and Paste: Congress manifesto and previous budgets,” he wrote on X.

CPI leader Sitharam Yechury called the budget rich centric.

“Overall, this budget is aimed at further enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor. It refused to consider any proposal of wealth or inheritance tax on the super-rich of India, nor any relief on indirect tax burden on people,” Yechury wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aditya Thackeray also took a dig at the budget averring that the ruling party is “looting Maharashtra”.

“I can understand the BJP wanting to save its government and giving Bihar and Andhra Pradesh a huge sum of the budget. But what is Maharashtra’s fault? That we are the largest taxpayer? What did we get against what we contributed? Was Maharashtra even mentioned once in the budget? Why does the bjp hate and insult Maharashtra so much? This isn’t the first time, through the entire past decade of bjp’s government, we have seen this bias against Maharashtra. It’s a shame that despite unconstitutionally forming a government and running the most corrupt regime in our state, Maharashtra gets nothing in return. Looting Maharashtra through the mind's regime’s corruption and then taxes, direct and indirect. That’s what we face,” he wrote on X.