CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party today said that the budget presented by the Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha was directionless and lacked any vision. “It is not just paperless, but directionless also”, the state BJP general secretary Dr Subash Sharma said while addressing a press conference here today.
“It is shameless cheating and fraud with over one crore women of Punjab who were promised Rs 1000 per month by the Aam Aadmi Party before elections and now the budget does not even refer to it”, he said, while pointing out, how the AAP made women to queue up in long lines to fill up the forms. These women, like other people of Punjab, will never forgive the AAP and the initial trailer has been shown in Sangrur, he remarked.
Referring to the announcement of 300 units of free power by the Finance Minister, Dr Sharma asked, where is the budgetary provision for the subsidy. He pointed out, like for the free power to agriculture sector there was a provision for Rs 6649 crores in the budget, but there is no such provision for 300 units of free electricity to other consumers, which reveals the intentions of the government. “This is a clear fraud with the people of Punjab”, he said.
The BJP leader also doubted the government claims over revenue generation from excise. He said the excise policy has already been opposed by the liquor contractors of Punjab as the AAP government has tried to benefit select few corporates.
He also took a dig at the AAP saying the FM in his budget speech had claimed that the revenue from non-tax sources will be about Rs 636 crores. This he added, according to FM included about Rs 300 crores from sand mining. Taking the AAP to task he pointed out, “just before elections Kejriwal used to repeatedly claim that he will generate Rs 20,000 crores, from sand mining, but where have Rs 19,700 crores gone?”
