Former Finance Minister and Rajya Sabha MP P. Chidambaram said on Tuesday that the NDA government was a “no data available” government, citing government replies mentioning lack of data on deaths due to oxygen shortage and bodies floating in the rivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking during the discussion on the Budget 2022-2023 in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress MP followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave the Government’s reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President. Referring to Mr. Modi’s speech mentioning jobs, Mr. Chidambaram said he should use the statistic of nearly 8 lakh government job vacancies in his next speech.
Referring to Mr. Modi’s charge on the Congress being the leader of the “tukde tukde gang”, Mr. Chidambaram said: “I am a member of the tukde-tukde gang… I am not worried, because in this Parliament a question was asked who are the members of the tukde-tukde gang and the Minister said, ‘We have no data available on the tukde- tukde gang’… There is no data available on the oxygen shortage deaths. There is no data available on the bodies in the rivers. There is no data available on how many migrants walked back to their homes. There is no data available on doubling farmers' income, which should have been done in 2022. This is a no-data-available government, otherwise the NDA government.”
Mr. Chidambaram said the revised Budget estimate for 2021-2022 had increased capital expenditure from ₹5.54 lakh crore to ₹6.02 lakh crore. However, the amount included a one-time debt payment of Air India of ₹51,971 crore. “This is not capital expenditure.”
Previous announcements
He said the Budget this year had no mention of the previous years’ announcements, including privatisation of BPCL, Container Corporation of India and two public sector banks; bidding out 151 passenger trains on 109 routes; and raising ₹6 lakh crore by selling old infrastructure.
“Why do you make these announcements if you do not have the capacity to execute any of these announcements? That is why, we don't take these announcements seriously,” he said.
Mr. Chidambaram asked Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to clarify to the House which figure was correct, that the nominal growth in 2022-2023 would be 11.1% as said in the Budget papers or that the real growth would be 8% as said by the Chief Economic Advisor.
“This government has forgotten the poor. The word 'poor' occurs twice in the Budget; the word 'jobs' occurs thrice in the Budget and one name occurs six times, and I compliment the Finance Minister for being loyal to her Prime Minister. You have forgotten the poor. Let me end by saying that the poor will not forget you; the poor have long memories,” he said.
Farmers’ income
BJP MP Arun Singh, who spoke next, said the Budget and the Modi government were dedicated to the poor, villages and farmers. Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar termed the Budget anti-people and said it “institutionalises the difference between classes”. He said the “only good news” was that the government was failing on its disinvestment targets.
M. Mohamed Abdulla of the DMK said the Finance Minister had repeated “same old schemes from previous years with no augmentation of funds”. He said the three Finance Ministers over the past seven years had mentioned the promise of “doubling of farmers’ income by 2022”, but this year’s Budget speech did not mention it.
