New Delhi. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has hit back at senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge over his statement in which he had said that through the budget, the BJP has ignored not one or two but many states. Kharge had said that the BJP has sidelined the people of those states where the BJP has lost. In a way, the BJP has tried to take revenge through the budget.
At the same time, now Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while hitting back at Kharge, said that the opposition leaders are saying that I did not name many states during my budget address. Overall, they are trying to say that I ignored the interests of many states. They believe that I gave importance to only two states during my budget address. I think the senior Congress leader should listen to my address once again.
Nirmala Sitharaman further said that only after this they should reach any conclusion. I feel that they have hurried to listen to my address, as a result of which they have given such a statement. I think Congress should not have any problem in understanding this, because this party has been in power for a long time. She said that Congress should know that when the budget is presented in Parliament, there are many things which it is mandatory to make all the members of the House aware of.
Apart from this, we also have to put forward various factors of the budget before the House and all these things take a lot of time. I think that the Congress, which has been in power for so long, must be aware that while presenting the budget, you do not have enough time to name all the states of this country. In such a situation, there is a strong possibility that you may miss out on naming many states, but the way senior Congress leaders are doing politics on this issue is condemnable. No amount of condemnation is enough for this.
Not naming anyone does not mean that…
The Finance Minister further said that for your information, when the interim budget was presented in February and now when this full budget was presented yesterday, there were many states in between, whose names I could not take. This happened in February as well as now. But, the way the opposition is bent on doing politics on this is beyond my understanding. I will explain to you as an example that I did not take the name of Maharashtra during my budget speech yesterday, but this does not mean that our government has disappointed Maharashtra or ignored its interests.
Was Maharashtra ignored?
He further said that we did not do this at all, but let me tell you that in the recent cabinet meeting under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was decided to establish a big port in Maharashtra, which will give new impetus to the development of the state. Will you now say that I ignored Maharashtra? I ignored the interests of Maharashtra? I ignored the suffering of the people of Maharashtra? I think all these things are absurd.
The Finance Minister said that I want to tell the House that 75 thousand crores have been allocated to establish that port in Maharashtra, in such a situation if you say that I am ignoring any state as the Finance Minister, then you are doing politics, but you should also know that you are not going to get any special benefit by doing this, because the people of the country are with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is the result of that support that today BJP has formed its government for the third time. Now whatever you people say, it does not matter. As a Finance Minister, I did not take the name of Maharashtra during the interim budget nor did I take it yesterday, but this does not mean at all that I have tried to hurt the interests of any state of my country. For me, the state of this country is paramount. The interest of every state is my priority.
She further said, “I think that through this statement, the senior Congress leader is trying to spread misinformation about the budget among the common people, which is completely unfair. I condemn this. I would say that this is a baseless allegation leveled by the opposition, which has no basis of its own. In the end, I want to reiterate once again that as a Finance Minister, every state of India has always been paramount for me and will remain so in the future too.”
Tags: budget session, Mallikarjun Kharge, Nirmala Sitaraman
FIRST PUBLISHED : July 24, 2024, 18:57 IST