Mamata Banerjee dubbed the Narendra Modi government’s Union budget “anti-people” and accused the Centre of trying to “sell out” public sector undertakings (PSUs).
Mamata, here to inaugurate the Uttarbanga Utsav — coined the term “Bhek Sarkarer Fake Budget (fake budget of a posturing government)”.
She explained that state finance minister Amit Mitra had said the Union budget is “disguised and camouflaged to deceive the people,” which helped her coin the phrase.
“The budget is anti-farmer and anti-people. They are trying to sell everything, including 23 PSUs. The new cess on petrol and diesel will only add to the woes of common people….whether it is insurance or jobs of employees in central-run PSUs, nothing is secure these days,” she said.
Mamata dubbed the allocations for Bengal’s road infrastructure and tea population as motivated by the upcoming elections.
“Construction of roads is in progress and our government has taken every initiative to clear pending (land) issues. Now that elections are ahead, BJP has again come up with some so-called sops...all these are empty promises... earlier, they had promised to open seven tea gardens but did nothing. They have not yet revoked the farm laws and are handing over most businesses to a couple of people,” she said.
Taking a dig at the BJP’s initiative to fly a group of Trinamul turncoats to Delhi on Saturday, she said “they could not arrange transport for migrant workers” but could arrange a chartered flight for some corrupt people.
The turncoats, including Mamata’s former minister Rajib Banerjee, joined the BJP at Union home minister Amit Shah’s house.
Mamata, who has time and again accused the Centre of not releasing funds to Bengal under various schemes, also alleged that for past few months, her government was not receiving subsidy for food grains.
“They are flagging the one nation, one ration card concept. We started working on it but the project got delayed because of the pandemic situation. That is why they have stopped subsidies on food grains for seven-eight months.”
