Budget leaves aam aadmi high and dry: Jaipal Reddy

Hyderabad: Former Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy on Thursday described the Union Budget as ‘totally disappointing’ and said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had failed to address the concerns of common man in his budget speech.

Addressing a press conference here at Gandhi Bhavan , Jaipal Reddy said the Union Budget for 2017-18, presented by Jaitley in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, was one of the worst budgets.

He said the budget lacked clarity on development plans. Further, he accused the Finance Minister of treating the negative impact of demonetisation very lightly. He said people had a lot of expectation from the Centre after the note ban. However, nothing was reflected in Jaitley's speech, he added.

Jaipal Reddy said the country’s GDP had decreased by nearly 2% ever since the BJP-led NDA government took over at the Centre.

He feared that the growth rate might be affected further if Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued with his ill-conceived economic policies. He said there was no relief in the budget for farmers, the worst hit sector due to demonitisation.

Reddy said Telangana got nothing in the Union Budget while the Centre had showered several sops for other States. He said injustice to Telangana was admitted by TRS MP K Kavitha herself.

He alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had mortgaged the interests of Telangana before the BJP government only for personal gains.