Union Budget 2023: Nothing for Mumbai and Maharashtra, says NCP leader Ajit Pawar

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar said the Union Budget disappointed the country including Maharashtra and it did not offer anything special for Mumbai.

Terming the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as deceptive and chunavi jumla (election stunt), Pawar said it was prepared with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections and polls in nine states.

There has been a pretence of increasing the exemption limit of income tax to appease the middle class, Pawar, a former state finance minister, tweeted.

By making the announcement that the country's economy will grow to the size of USD 5 trillion, the Union government has admitted to its incompetence, he said.

There was no mention in the budget of the promise to create two crore jobs. Like Make in India, Aatmanirbhar Bharat, it seems that the hollow slogans of this year's budget will also vanish into thin air, Pawar said.

No concrete measures were proposed to reduce inflation and increase employment, the NCP leader said. The government conveniently forgot to reduce taxes on essential commodities, he said.

The inauguration of works carried out by the (Mumbai) Municipal Corporation was done with a great fanfare, but it does not seem that Mumbai has got anything special from the budget. Overall, this budget has disappointed the country including Maharashtra, tweeted Pawar, the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly.

How can the present period be called Amrit Kaal when the country's GDP growth was only 3 per cent between 2018 and 2022, Pawar said. Maharashtra, which gives the highest revenue to the country in the form of direct and indirect taxes, does not seem to have received much from this budget, he said.