VIJAYANAGAR: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has announced that he will lead a protest in Delhi on February 7 against the ‘injustice’ done to the state by the Union government in the interim budget for 2024-25.
Further, the CM accused the BJP-led central government of ignoring the state’s plight amid the drought situation. “Karnataka has been treated unfairly in the Union Budget. Therefore, we have decided to protest in Delhi on February 7. Not a single penny has been given to the state for drought management”, Siddaramaiah said on Friday.
The Karnataka CM also accused Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of failing to allocate any funds for drought management in Karnataka. “The country should be united… The BJP does not talk about drought, inflation or unemployment… Nirmala Sitharaman has done injustice as Finance Minister”, CM Siddaramaiah said.
The Union government presented the interim budget for 2024-25 in Parliament on Thursday with a focus on economic policies that foster growth, facilitate inclusive development, improve productivity, and create opportunities for various sections, while also noting that it will pay utmost attention to the eastern region, including the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal, to make them growth engines as part of a goal to make India a developed country by 2047.
No change was proposed in the tax rates in the interim budget, with Finance Minister Sitharaman announcing that the government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from the fast population and that it will present a white paper on the economic performance of 10 years of BJP-led government compared to the previous 10 years of Congress-led UPA government.
This was the last budget of the PM Modi government in its second term, with Lok Sabha polls expected in April-May this year. Sitharaman, who presented her sixth budget in the Lok Sabha, expressed confidence in the BJP-led NDA coming to power again. “In the full budget in July, our government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of ‘Viksit Bharat’,” Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. (ANI)