P Chidambaram Trashes Union Budget 2020

P Chidambaram, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister, has stridently criticised the Modi government on the General Budget for financial year 2020-21. Training his guns on Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister, Chidambaram called the Budget ‘unfortunate’ and said that there was no narrative in the 160-minute-long Budget speech and that is why, it disappeared - as a topic - from the front pages of newspapers and from TV channels the very next day.

He said further that “the Budget was like a movie which bombed after the first show. It’s unfortunate that so many heads come together, write a marathon speech and yet the people are left in the dark about what is it that the govt wanted to say.” 

Chidamabaram also said that the available figures of six quarters show that there has been a decline in them. After each quarter, the government said that things will change in the next quarter; this is a serious issue. He said further that the government will have to accept that the economy is in a bad shape. Chidambaram also said that a doctor cannot prescribe the right treatment to a patient until he makes the correct diagnosis.

He added that both import and export are in the negative and this government believes that we should be self-sustaining.

Sitharaman had presented the Budget on February 1. While the ruling party is saying that it is in everyone’s interest, the Opposition has called it a directionless budget.

Earlier, declaring the Budget as hollow, Rahul Gandhi, former Congress President, had said on Saturday that there is nothing concrete in it and it says nothing about dealing with unemployment.

Former finance minister @PChidambaram_IN has come down heavily on the #UnionBudget2020. Chidambaram said the #BJP government is not acknowledging that the economy faces a "grave macro-economic challenge" where the rate of growth has steadily declined in six successive quarters. pic.twitter.com/riuJBm4qHo

— GoNewsIndia (@GoNews_India) February 4, 2020