Opposition, allies slam Chidambaram's budget

New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) Opposition parties and the allies of the Congress-led UPA Thursday slammed the budget for 2013-14 presented by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.

The BJP termed it as "verbose and low on substance", the Left rejected it as a "lollypop" and SP and BSP called it as "anti-farmer and anti-poor".

Criticising the budget presented by Chidambaram, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley said: "The budget is verbose but on substance, extremely low."

According to Jaitley, the finance minister had indulged in a "little bit of jugglery by marginally increasing taxes in certain ministries and substantially reducing expenditure".

"First put the economy in distress; then a helpless finance minister comes out with a budget in which he had very little elbow space," he said.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury said the budget presumed things and wondered from where will the finance minister get the tax revenues.

"Chidambaram has presumed that taxes will grow up. These are unreliable. In the first nine months of the last year the central excise collection fell by 16 per cent. From where is he going to get an increase in the tax revenues?," asked Yechury.

Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta said the union budget is a "lollypop" offered by the government and alleged it reflected tokenism.

"This is a lollypop election budget. They have foregone Rs.67,000 crore last year. There is no serious effort to collect revenue," he remarked.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said he will oppose the budget in parliament.

"This budget has completely ignored the farmers. It is only meant for 10 percent population, while the interests of 65 percent engaged in farming have been ignored. SP will oppose the budget in parliament," Yadav told reporters.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said the government's policies were not in the interest of the common man.

"There is nothing new in this budget and neither anything for farmers, employees and the middle class," she said.