Chief minister Hemant Soren said that contrary to expectations of a pro-people Union Budget, the one presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitaram in Parliament on Tuesday for the 2022-23 fiscal turned out to be more of the Centre’s "mann ki baat", in what was a thinly disguised dig at the Prime Minister's regular address on radio and television.

“Our PM holds his Mann ki Baat programme through radio and TV every month where he only speaks his mind without any relation to reality. Similarly, Sitharamanji today spoke about the Centre’s mann ki baat through her budget speech without considering the requirements of the state. Not only this, her budget doesn’t say anything concrete for scores of jobless, poor, farmers, youths and a large section of the people,” he said.

Hemant, who reached Dumka in the evening on Tuesday to attend JMM’s foundation day programme on Wednesday, added that this year’s budget seemed more like an attempt to disrupt and weaken fiscal management and relations between states and Centre.

“There are no state specific suggestions or acknowledgement of the (people's) needs in the budget. Rather than increasingfiscal assistance to states that are poor and under-developed, the Centre has announced to provide loans and has increased allocations, which is clearly an indication that it wants the states to be debt-ridden,” he said.

Hemant also took a dig at the Centre’s move to privatise and ramp up funds. “Only by doing this, BJP has emerged as one of the biggest parties with a net worth of Rs 5,000 crore,” he said.

Veteran Congressman and state finance minister Rameshwar Oraon said that none of the state's demands such as increase in the GST compensation window, devolution of more funds to states, key projects like an IIT and AIIMS in Ranchi, or improvement in the state's railway network were accepted. “The biggest jolt in this budget is for taxpayers and the salaried class who largely got nothing. For me, the budget is like an imaginary text,” he said in a statement.