The Assam Congress on Friday said the Union budget is full of ornamental words and has nothing for Assam and the other states of the Northeast.

“The budget talked about cleaning the Ganga but remained silent on the Brahmaputra or the Barak. The government had organised Namami Brahmaputra and Namami Barak only to hoodwink the people,” PCC president Ripun Bora said.

Bora said the budget talked about the youths but not about increasing employment or jobs, talked about taking the country’s economy to $5 trillion by 2025 but not about the roadmap on how to make it.

Bora criticised the Centre’s decision to hike the excise duty on petrol and diesel saying it would be a burden on the common people.

“The government repeatedly talked of giving free LPG connections to seven crore women. But it is silent about the number of active users among them,” Bora said.

He added that many beneficiaries of the free LPG connections failed to buy cylinders because of their exorbitant prices.

According to the Congress, while giving stress on higher education and research, the budget did not give proper emphasis on primary education. It said primary education was the most important in a person’s life.

“In fact, the budget has nothing for the poor people. It is to help the corporates,” Bora said.

He gave an example of how the budget proposed to raise the annual turnover limit from Rs 250 crore to Rs 400 crore for a company for availing of lower corporate tax rate of 25 per cent.

The AGP, on the other hand, termed the budget a populist one.

AGP president Atul Bora said the budget aimed at strengthening the base of rural economy. He said the promise to revolutionise the agricultural sector of the country, enough provisions for women and the unemployed, along with emphasis on higher education and research are some of the important aspects of the budget.