The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has termed the Himachal Budget 2018 misleading and was a finance capital driven budget, which is a usual trait in the all the previous budget since 1990, whether presented by the Centre or any state.

Addressing mediapersons on Saturday, CPIM senior leader and the lone legislature Rakesh Singha said, “When a discussion will be held on the budget in the Assembly, we will urge for its withdrawal. Such a finance-driven budget has always been rejected by the left governments to some extent. The finance-driven budget can never be people friendly and cannot be in favour of the public.”

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He blamed both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party governments of always politicising the budget and misleading the people with the jugglery of numbers and is aimed at exempting the corporate houses and rich people. The agenda of both the political parties is to push the burden on the common man, he charged.

“Our party’s focus is on the serious situation of financial crisis the state is undergoing which has not been addressed and the budget has failed miserably in resource mobilisation to increase the state’s income,” he said.

“The budget is a mere projection, what is concrete is the Economic Survey that exists and is a reality, which gives serious indications that the state’s economy is going through serious crisis.

The Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2015-2016 was 8.1 per cent and in 2016-17 it has dropped to 6.9 per cent. The last budget presented by the previous Congress-led government shows GSDP at 6.3 per cent after the review which has reflected in the recent Economic Survey,” he said.

“With such a constant negative growth continues, I guarantee it will drop below 5 per cent,” he asserted.

“In 2000-01 the primary sector contribution was 21.1 per cent, in 2015-16 has dropped to 9.4 per cent and in 2016-17 it has further slumped to 3 per cent and shocking the recent Economic Survey points that it has reached to -5.3 pc which is a serious economic crisis and the states economy has touched a danger mark and we are heading for major crisis,” he said.