File picture of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan
| Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat
The ruling and Opposition fronts in Kerala have termed the 2024-25 Union Budget a “political act” to appease allies who could potentially undermine the precarious National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Budget lacked a national character, discriminated against non-NDA-ruled States, ran against the grain of federalism and monomaniacally focussed on the Central government’s political self-preservation.
Hurdles to progress
Mr. Vijayan called for politically bipartisan protests against the Centre’s prejudice against Kerala. The Union government had created more hurdles to the State’s path to progress. It had thrown a challenge to Keralites.
He said the Union Budget bypassed Kerala’s demand for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and ignored its tourism sector. The Centre’s unreasonable ceiling on the borrowing limit of States had stymied Kerala’s essential infrastructure development. The Budget made no allocation to mitigate agrarian distress. The GST regime had robbed States of their taxation authorities. However, the Centre had whittled down the share States from the divisive tax pool.
‘No mention of Kerala’
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not consider Kerala worthy of mention in the Union Budget. He termed the Budget pro-corporate. It had no viable schemes to generate employment, curb inflation and lessen the growing rich-poor divide in the country.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran said the Modi government heaped largesse on its Bihar and Andhra Pradesh allies while ignoring other States. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said the Finance Minister should have tabled the Union Budget in the Bihar or Andhra Pradesh Assembly. He said the Union Budget had reduced allocations for rural employment guarantee schemes; fishers and coast dwellers; and public health, education, agriculture and other traditional sectors.
Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader N.K. Premachandran, MP, told reporters in New Delhi that the “Naidu-Nitish Dependant Alliance” Budget lacked a national character and discriminated against States ruled by non-NDA governments. He said BJP MP Suresh Gopi’s campaign assurance to get an AIIMS for Kerala failed.
‘For political survival’
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] MPs K. Radhakrishnan, A.A. Rahim, and John Brittas termed the Budget disappointing and tuned for the Modi government’s political survival. The Central government did not think that Kerala merited even a mention in the Union Budget.
