Siddaramaiah, Dr G Parameshwar: It’s a most disappointing budget

Bengaluru: The “most disappointing” budget was how former chief minister, Siddaramaiah, and deputy chief minister, Dr G Parameshwar, slammed the budget proposals announced by Union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, here on Friday.  Mr Siddaramaiah, who holds the record for presenting budget proposals 13 times, told the media here: “The BJP has always lied, and has done nothing for the betterment of key sectors. This budget is an anti-socialistic in nature and will harm the economy.”

According to him, expectations were running high among people about the budget proposals for 2019-2020, but they were in for disappointment. “It's against development. They promised growth in the farm sector, which remained false. Farmers are not getting MSP, they are in dire straits.  There is no pro-farmers initiative in the budget,” he said adding the proposals do not include any schemes to overcome the problem of unemployment though the figures have touched a record high over the last 45 years. Besides, the aspirations of women, too, were not fulfilled by the first woman finance minster of the Union government, he added.

The former CM criticized the Union finance minister for not addressing concerns, including irrigation and horticulture practices in agriculture, lack of proposals in health schemes, education and women empowerment.

‘Broken economy’
Meanwhile, Dr Parameshwar quipped that there was no coherent plan to fix a broken economy, leave alone making it a five trillion dollar one.

"We had lot of expectations and hopes as  Ms Nirmala Sitharaman represents Karnataka in parliament. We expected that we will get substantial fund allocations to expedite sub-urban rail project. but astonishingly there is not even mention about it in her speech. Similarly, there is no significant allocation for agriculture or animal husbandry sectors," he added.