Opposition terms budget quixotic in Kerala Assembly

Thiruvananthapuram: The thrust of the opposition attack against finance minister Thomas Isaac on the second day of the discussion on the Budget in the Assembly on Tuesday was that his proposals were too airy for anything concrete to materialise. “As a person who has suffered the consequences of Isaac’s six earlier budgets, I for one do not feel like applauding his latest budget proposals,” former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said.

Former PWD minister V K Ibrahim Kunju was equally stinging. “Last time when he was finance minister, Isaac had spoken confidently of extracting money from dam sand and forest timber. Nothing happened. This is precisely why we describe his new proposals as ‘Utopian’,” Mr Kunju said. He said it was left to the UDF government to carry the huge burden of Isaac's first Anti-Recession Package. "We completed all the roads and bridges you proposed," he said.

Chandy was at his sarcastic best. “It is good that you raised pensions to Rs 1000,” he said. “But there are physically-challenged and old people who already get more than '1000 as pension. Please don’t cut down their pension amount in the name of uniformity. If at all you want uniformity, raise all pensions to their levels,” Chandy said. He also sought to flatten Isaac’s welfare claims. “Isaac presented six budgets earlier and still the maximum pension he could offer was Rs 300. But K M Mani had to return as finance minister to hike the pension to Rs 1000,” Chandy said.

He said that Isaac was selective in his White Paper. “You included only those numbers that serve your argument,” he said. “Why was the fact that non-tax revenue had shot up by 336 percent during the UDF term (from Rs 412 crore in 2011 to Rs 18,016 crore in 2016) not included in the White Paper,” he asked. Chandy also argued that tax revenues during his tenure had fallen only behind the target fixed, and not alarmingly as stated by Isaac. “It is normal for governments to peg the target high,” he reasoned.