oppn parties Budget 2021: Opposing Just For The Sake Of Opposition

News Snippets

  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Budget 2021: Opposing Just For The Sake Of Opposition

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2021-02-02 01:46:10

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

It was very interesting to see the reaction of opposition leaders to the Budget 2021. For the last few months, economists were flaying this government for not investing in infrastructure and others sectors to sustain the green shoots that were showing up in the economy after the lockdown. Yet, when the finance minister presents a revival budget by stretching the fiscal deficit to 9.5% in order to make substantial investments in many sectors to kick start the economy and generate jobs, the opposition slams it as a "pro-corporate" budget.

All experts were afraid that the government did not have money to spend and would take advantage of Covid situation to raise taxes and burden the taxpayers. Yet when the finance minister has steered clear of such imposition, the opposition is now saying that the budget has nothing for the middle classes. Is not raising taxes and finding the money to invest from other sources a huge relief for the middle class? Yes the finance minister could have thought of the problems being faced by the salaried class and increased the limit of standard deduction, but otherwise the middle class is not unduly burdened.

The worst reaction was from Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram who chose to highlight just the fact that the finance minister had imposed a cess on petrol and diesel that would make them costlier. He conveniently forgot to add that Sitharaman had simultaneously lowered the excise duty on both products to offset the effect of the cess and petrol and diesel will not become costlier. The cess was imposed only to channelize the amount for specific needs and it is not intended to increase the price or place additional burden on consumers. Being a former finance minister, Chidambaram should have presented the correct picture to the people. Opposing just for the sake of opposition is not done.