BJP calls 2024-25 interim budget ‘encouraging’, opposition calls it ‘anti-people’ Check reactions

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the mid-term budget 2024 on Thursday. The interim budget is a temporary financial plan presented by the government when it does not have the time or authority to present a full budget.

Watch the 2024 Budget live updates here

While BJP leaders termed the interim budget 2024-25 as “encouraging” and “empowering”, opposition leaders expressed disappointment, calling it an “anti-people budget”.

Key highlights of the 2024-25 medium-term budget include the tax system – Direct and indirect – including import duties.

FM Sitharaman said, “The target is to reduce the fiscal deficit to below 4.5% by FY26”.

BJP leaders react to 2024 interim budget –

• Defense Minister Rajnath Singh called it an “encouraging” budget and said, “We are fully confident of achieving our goal of becoming a developed country by 2047.”
• BJP MP Poonam Mahajan emphasized that the Interim Budget 2024 empowered the poor, women, farmers and youth and said: “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, a woman has empowered the country. Prime Minister Modi has always believed that the country must Marching forward with women leads the nation. We are empowering Viksit Bharat – Garib, Mahila, Kisan, Yuva…”
• Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Jagdish Devda welcomed the budget and said, “It is good and should be welcomed. The poor, women, youth and farmers have been taken care of in this budget.” Madhya Pradesh will also benefit from these schemes…”
• Union Minister VK Singh said: “…Everything will be done for ‘Vikshit Bharat’… Everything has been discussed in the budget to strengthen the economy…”
• Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said: “The Finance Minister’s Budget aims to strengthen India’s economic sectors and is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determination to make India the third largest economy in the world… It is an accelerating National budget for development and employment creation…”
• “In the interim budget, you have not come up with any new proposals, it is a process of seeking parliamentary approval for expenditures that have to be spent in the coming months,” said BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy. , as we work towards the next election…”
• Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar called the budget an excellent summary of the qualitative and quantitative transformation of the Indian economy over the past 10 years.

Opposition leader reacts to 2024 interim budget –

• Congress MP Manish Tewari said: “This is a ‘vote of record’ with one purpose and that is to keep the government solvent in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. What is worrying is that , the budget deficit is as high as Rs 1,800 crore. This means the government is borrowing money for its spending. This number will only increase next year.”
• All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Debangshu Bhattacharya Dev took a jibe at the budget and said: “We can only hope for the best because ‘Phir hogi paison ki Hera Pheri’.”
• Calling it the BJP’s “farewell budget”, Samajwadi Party leader and former BJP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said: “If any budget is not for development, any development is not for the people. , then it is of no use. The BJP government has completed a decade of anti-people budgets and created a shameful record that will never be broken again because it is time for a proactive government to come. This It’s the ‘farewell budget’ of the BJP.”
• Congress MP Shashi Tharoor took aim at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech, calling it “one of the shortest speeches on record and very disappointing”.
• “It was one of the shortest speeches in the Budget. Not much came of it. As usual, there was a lot of rhetorical language and very little concrete implementation… She talked about foreign investment but did not acknowledge that it had fallen significantly . She talked about some things in vague language like “confidence” and “hope” and so on. But when it came to hard data, there was very little data available… This was going to be a very disappointing speech because It is expressed in complete generalities without enough substance and without the will to address concrete issues of the economy…” Shashi Tharoor said.
• Reacting to the interim budget 2024-25, Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said: “This is just an administrative action to ensure that the government of India has the necessary funds to carry out normal business till the formation of the new Parliament and the formation of a new government. That’s what they do, there is nothing, and there should be nothing, other than the obligatory self-congratulatory, self-praising phrases, and rightly so. There is nothing there.”
• Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) MP NK Premachandran pointed out that there was no mention of unemployment in the mid-term budget for 2024-25.
• “Unfortunately, the finance minister is talking about the achievements of the last ten years. This is an interim budget. Even then, it does not give any vision…The unemployment situation in the country is worrying and not a word is said about it… It was just an eloquent speech by the finance minister…” Premachandran said.