Budget a cruel joke with people especially with farmers: AAP
Chandigarh, June 20, 2017: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has termed the state budget 2017-18 presented on Tuesday by Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal as a joke because it shattered people’s expectations from it.
The party legislators staged a walkout in the Assembly while the budget was being presented.
In a news conference later, AAP Legislature Party leader HS Phoolka and MLA Kanwar Sandhu said the Amarinder government backed out on its promise of complete farm debt waiver.
A day before AAP had appreciated the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for announcing the waiver for the debt-ridden farmers owning up to 5 acre land.
Phoolka said they made this gesture not knowing the same would be overturned the next day at the budget presentation. The actual budget allocation of Rs 1500 crore was too small a sum to provide any relief to the stressed farmers as the volume of debt was manifold bigger,
MLA Sandhu said there a mismatch between the announcements made by the Chief Minister and the Finance Minister which showed the government was insincere in what it says and what it does. They noted the increasing number of farmers committing suicides failed to move the government.
The party also rued there was nothing in the budget to provide any debt relief to the people of reserve categories. It termed Rs one crore allocation for setting up sports university as peanuts.
The budget also left the AAP unimpressed by any worthy attention in the budget to health and education sectors.