The Opposition on Thursday termed the Interim Union Budget 2024-25 “disappointing” as it failed to address the crucial issues of unemployment and inflation.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her sixth budget in a row on Thursday. In her Budget speech, she said the Indian economy has witnessed a profound transformation in the last 10 years and that the Narendra Modi government carried out structural reforms and implemented pro-people programmes.

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She noted that the government will continue on the path of fiscal consolidation to reduce the fiscal deficit to 4.5% in 2025-26. She did not propose any changes relating to taxation and said the government proposes to maintain the same tax rates for direct and indirect taxes, including import duties.

Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the budget is nothing but to woo people for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. “Is this a budget to provide employment to the unemployed? No,” he said.

Another Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “It is a ‘vote-on-account’ budget which has only one purpose to keep the government solvent for the first quarter of the current fiscal year.”

He also expressed concern about high budget deficit. “What is worrying is that there is a budget deficit of Rs 18 lakh crore. This means that the government is borrowing for its expenditure. This number is only going to increase next year,” he added.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said the Interim Budget 2024-25 was presented in rhetorical language with very little concrete on implementation.

“It was one of the shortest speeches on record in the Budget. Not very much came out of it. As usual a lot of rhetorical language, and very little concrete implementation. The finance minister talked about foreign investment without acknowledging that that investment has come down significantly,” he claimed.

“She (Sitharaman) talked about a number of things which are couched in vague language like ‘confidence’ and ‘hope’ and so on. But when it comes to hard figures, very few figures are available. This is going to be a very disappointing speech in terms of being couched entirely in generalities and without enough substance nor any willingness to address the specific problems of the economy,” the Congress leader added.

Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal termed the budget “hollow”.

“There was nothing for the youth, women, farmers…I saw arrogance when they said they would present the budget in July. You cannot take any election for granted,” she said.

Another leader from Opposition, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran said the Interim Budget rated ‘zero’ when it came to delivery.

“The Finance Minister took a long time to hail praises but delivery was zero. They are going to present a white paper on the previous government… Nothing much has happened in the last 10 years. The people of the country are already disappointed. Moreover, you realise that performance incentives are given to the bridge companies, and not going to the deserving ones. People are rejected with this budget” Maran said.

Newly elected AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal termed the budget as “disappointing”.

“This is a disappointing budget. Inflation and unemployment are at their peak in the country but there is nothing about it in the budget…It is a disappointing budget for the common people” the AAP MP said.