Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented a balanced budget and presented the basis for making India a developed country by 2047, but the opposition is spreading rumors and confusion about this budget. Opposition leaders, especially from the southern states of India, are calling the budget full of discrimination and are alleging that injustice has been done to their states. Especially in Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK has opened the strongest front against the Union Budget. After the presentation of the Union Budget, the DMK chief and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu were the first to oppose it and announced that they would not attend the NITI Aayog meeting. In Parliament too, DMK MPs have run a continuous campaign against the budget. DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran has accused the central government of discriminating against Tamil Nadu and the Tamil people and said that the people of the state will never forgive the BJP-led government. The DMK alleges that Tamil Nadu is being punished because it did not support the BJP in the elections. The DMK alleges that the Prime Minister is not working for those who did not vote for him.
The DMK alleges that the central government has not given Tamil Nadu the money due for the Chennai Metro Rail project for three years and did not help the state even during the flood crisis. The DMK says that Prime Minister Modi has said many times that he loves the Tamil language but he should tell what he has done for the Tamil language and the Tamil people? When Chief Minister Stalin boycotted the NITI Aayog meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on July 27, alleging complete neglect of Tamil Nadu in the Union Budget, many other Chief Ministers of opposition-ruled states followed him.
DMK alleges that during her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned Bihar and Andhra Pradesh ruled by Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu, who are supporting the NDA government, but did not mention Tamil Nadu, which is also in dire need of central help. If seen, DMK is trying to mislead the public here because it is being said from its side that the states which are not mentioned in the budget speech do not get the full benefit of budgetary provisions. From 2004 to 2014, when the UPA government was in power at the center, which also included DMK, Tamil Nadu was not mentioned in the budget speech for six years. In such a situation, the question arises whether Tamil Nadu did not get the benefit of budgetary provisions in those years?
If we look at the central assistance received by Tamil Nadu during UPA vs NDA rule, it is found that from 2014 to 2024, Tamil Nadu has received ten times more assistance than the announcements made in the Union Budget. This shows that it is NDA and not UPA that has brought relief to Tamil Nadu.
Chief Minister Stalin, who is boycotting the Niti Aayog meeting in protest against the Union Budget, should also think that if he had gone to the meeting, he would have probably raised his issues, but now since he is not going, in a way he himself is harming the state. Describing the Chief Minister’s decision to boycott the Niti Aayog meeting as a drama, the BJP has also asked what will the Chief Minister achieve from this? The BJP has said that Stalin’s dream of becoming the Prime Minister could not be fulfilled, so he is opposing the Union Budget.
However, it is completely wrong to say that this is the budget of only two states. The allocation of capital expenditure of Rs 11 lakh 11 thousand 111 crore for the construction of infrastructure has been made not for one or two states but for the whole country. From infrastructure to medical care, income tax exemption to the middle class people, facilities given to farmers or a separate package to the tribals, all this is also not for one or two states but for the whole country. Therefore, the game of spreading confusion and rumors about the Union Budget should be stopped.
