Kolkata, Feb 1 The Trinamool Congress has accused the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of depriving West Bengal in her budget proposals for the Financial Year 2025-26 that were presented on the floor of the Parliament on Saturday.
"When West Bengal had sent 18 BJP Lok Sabha members to the Parliament, even then the state was deprived. West Bengal has been totally deprived this time as well. There is nothing in the Budget proposals for the state government," Trinamool Congress's General Secretary and the party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee told media persons while giving his reaction on the Union Budget proposals.
He also said that the Budget proposals for 2025-26 were simply vote-oriented keeping the forthcoming Assembly polls in Bihar in mind.
"Since there are Assembly elections in Bihar this year, there have been a lot of proposals for Bihar. This government does everything that is politics-oriented. They do nothing for the sake of common people," Banerjee added.
However, on the proposals for raising the minimum tax slab to Rs 12 lakh from Rs 7 lakh in the new regime in addition to Rs 75,000 of the standard deduction for salaried taxpayers, Banerjee said he will be able to comment on this issue after studying the Budget documents in detail.
Amit Mitra, the former West Bengal Finance Minister and currently the Chief Economic Advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said that the decision in the Budget proposal for 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the insurance sector without cutting the GST on insurance premium had been taken by the Union government because of international corporate pressures.
He also said that the real positive impact of raising the minimum tax slab to Rs 12 lakh from Rs 7 lakh per annum will be negated to a great extent by the rising inflation since the Budget proposals for 2025-26 have failed to address the crucial issue on how to keep inflation under control.
State BJP President and the Union Minister of State Sukanta Majumdar, however, negated Abhishek Banerjee's comments of West Bengal being deprived in the Budget proposals.
"West Bengal government is not even allowing different Central welfare schemes to be implemented in West Bengal. The only thing that the West Bengal government and the ruling party are busy with is picking up fights with the Central government. So the statements on Bengal being deprived do not suit them," Majumdar said.
--IANS
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