Desh ka halwa bik raha hai: Rahul attacks Centre on budget

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi, while speaking on the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha on Monday, came down heavily on the Centre for the lack of diversity among the officers who prepared the Union Budget 2024. As part of his address, Rahul Gandhi highlighted a photo of the traditional Halwa ceremony, a ritual held at the Ministry of Finance before the budget session.

This ceremony symbolises the finalisation of the budget, with halwa being distributed among the officers.

He took a jibe at the BJP-led NDA government stating that ‘Desh ka halwa bik raha hai’. “We expected that it would help farmers, labourers and small and medium businesses. But the sole aim of the business is to strengthen the framework of monopoly business, political monopoly and the deep state or the agencies,” Rahul said. “The budget did nothing to end this tax terrorism…the Finance Minister did not say a word on the paper leak,” Rahul said. He tried to show a picture of the halwa ceremony.

“This photo shows budget ka halwa being distributed in this photo. I can’t see one OBC or tribal or a Dalit officer in this. Twenty officers prepared the budget … Hindustan ka halwa 20 logon ne baatne ka kaam kiya hai…” Rahul said. “Out of the 20 officers, there is only one OBC and one minority, and they were not even shown in the picture,” he added.

However, the view was immediately shifted to Speaker Om Birla who expressed disappointment in the senior Congress leader.

When Rahul protested, Birla said, “You hold a constitutional position. You cannot bring posters into the House.”