Oppn Slams Budget as Bihar-Centric, 'Band-Aid for Bullet Wounds'

Oppn slams Budget as Bihar-centric, 'band-aid for bullet wounds'

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NEW DELHI: The Opposition on Saturday slammed the Union Budget for 2025-26, describing it as one offering "band-aid for bullet wounds" and being Bihar-centric in a bid to woo voters in the poll-bound state as well as in Delhi, which votes to elect a new assembly on February 5.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Centre was "bankrupt of ideas" and needed a paradigm shift to solve the economic crisis. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the government was busy garnering praise for the Budget when the entire country was struggling with inflation and unemployment.

Kharge, who is the Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha, claimed the Budget was an attempt to "dupe" the people. Presenting the Budget for the eighth straight time, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced significant income tax cuts for the middle class and unveiled a blueprint for next-generation reforms as she looked to shore up a slowing economy amid global uncertainties.

However, the Opposition said the sops to the middle class had come long after they suffered the brunt of high taxes and price rises.

“A band-aid for bullet wounds! Amid global uncertainty, solving our economic crisis demanded a paradigm shift,” Rahul Gandhi said in a post on X.

The Congress criticised the Budget as bereft of a cure for the “illnesses” of stagnant real wages, lack of buoyancy in mass consumption, sluggish rates of private investment, and a complicated GST system that the economy was suffering from.