Two ‘P’s played on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lips when he stood before a camera to record and upload his response to the budget: polls and prosperity.

“The interim budget is a trailer for what will take India towards prosperity after the Lok Sabha polls,” Modi said in a video statement that was also uploaded on his Twitter handle.

The budget will boost the efforts of 130 crore citizens in realising the goal of a “new India”, Modi said.

He congratulated the middle class for the relief in taxes and said he saluted the section for its contribution to the development of the nation.

On the pro-farmer initiatives in the budget, Modi claimed that for many years, initiatives had been taken for peasants but many of them never came under the ambit of these schemes. He said the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Nidhi was a historic step for the welfare of farmers.

Modi added that the animal husbandry sector and fisheries had been taken care of in the budget for “new India”.

Arun Jaitley, who has temporarily given up charge of the finance ministry for undergoing treatment in New York, defended the tax proposals in the “interim” budget.

Referring to the income-tax rebate, Jaitley said: “This effectively strengthens the great Indian Middle Class whose expansion of purchasing power holds the key for India’s future.”

Jaitley noted that interim budgets were presented in an election year to seek a vote on account for a limited period till the post-election government can decide the further direction of the economy.

However, precedents have conclusively shown that urgent steps are required in the larger interests of the economy and they can be taken, he added.

“We have the immediate precedents of the year 2009 and 2014 where significant taxation changes were brought about in the interim budgets,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post.

P. Chidambaram had in 2014 changed duty structures on some commodities but not direct taxes such as the income tax.

On Friday evening, Jaitley said over a video link: “I completely reject this artificial distinction between direct and indirect taxes. You can deal with indirect taxes, not with direct taxes. Tell me, giving a boost to the economy, is it not required today in the larger interest of the economy? On one hand, the so-called critics, ‘Nawabs of Negativity’, are saying that the world’s fastest growing economy is growing slowly. If that’s the point of criticism, then let us be allowed to give a boost to the economy. And, this higher consumption will certainly give boost to the economy.”

“Budgets are a political reality in a parliamentary democracy. So are elections, but this is not a move which anywhere contradicts or deviates from what this government has been doing in the past five years. It’s actually a logical movement in the direction in which we were moving in the last five years,” he said.

In an apparent reference to the raging controversy over jobs, Jaitley wondered how the Indian economy can grow at an average of 7.5 per cent in the past five years without any job creation.

“The last five years have seen an average of about 7.5 per cent real GDP growth.… Is it possible to conceive that such high nominal growth despite controlled inflation will not lead to any job creation?” he noted.

On his health, Jaitley said: “I am much better now. Hopefully, will be back soon.”