Sravasti Dasgupta 
New Delhi: The BJP-led Union government’s first budget after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which was presented on Tuesday (July 23) by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and includes major gains for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, has been termed as a “kursi bachao” (‘seat-saver’ in Hindi) budget to give primacy to the saffron party’s key allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP fell short of a majority on its own. The JD(U) (the BJP’s alliance partner in Bihar) has 12 Lok Sabha seats, and the TDP (in power in Andhra Pradesh), which has 16 seats, are crucial allies for the BJP-led NDA government.
In a statement, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP has tried to appease allies with the budget.
““Kursi Bachao” Budget,” he wrote on X.
“Appease Allies: Hollow promises to them at the cost of other states. Appease Cronies: Benefits to AA with no relief for the common Indian. Copy and Paste: Congress manifesto and previous budgets.”
Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said that the budget was only meant to keep the BJP’s allies, the JD(U) and the TDP, close to it.
“This is a kursi bachao budget in order to keep Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu with them. This budget is not for the country. They have not given anything to Bengal. They cannot tolerate Bengalis and Bengal,” he said.
While special category status for Bihar has been a longstanding demand by the JD(U) – one it also raised in the all-party meeting held on Sunday – Andhra Pradesh has also long sought the status, leading Naidu to leave the NDA in 2018.
Both the JD(U) and the TDP returned to the NDA fold ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
At the all-party meeting, while the opposition in Andhra Pradesh, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), raised the issue of special category status for Andhra Pradesh, the TDP did not.
In the budget, Sitharaman announced a Rs 26,000 crore outlay for various infrastructure projects in Bihar, including airports, medical colleges and sports infrastructure.
She also announced a plan named ‘Purvodaya’ for the all-round development of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.
Sitharaman also announced Rs 15,000 crore this fiscal and in subsequent years for the development of Andhra Pradesh’s capital city Amaravati and for the financing and completion of the Polavaram irrigation project in the state.
Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin alleged the Union government ignored his state in the budget and said he would not attend NITI Aayog’s governing council meeting on Saturday (July 17) in protest.
“… I was preparing to participate in the [governing council] meeting, but as there were no funds allotted at all for Tamil Nadu in the Union budget, I have decided not to participate in the meeting, I am going to boycott it … Just the way they have boycotted Tamil Nadu, I have decided it is right to completely boycott [the meeting],” Stalin said on Tuesday.
He added that his MPs were going to stage a protest in Delhi.
Samajwadi Party chief and Lok Sabha MP Akhilesh Yadav said that the measures announced by the government in the budget are to save the Union government. He questioned how it planned to address unemployment.
“Sarkaar bachani hai toh acchi baat hai ki Bihar aur Andhra Pradesh ko vishesh yojnao se joda gaya hai. [They have to save the government so they have announced special schemes for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.],” he said to reporters.
Yadav added: “But for a state like Uttar Pradesh that gives the country the prime minister, are there any big announcements for the farmers? They have increased unemployment in the last 10 years. How to reduce unemployment? If they are giving dreams of jobs of one to two years, what about full time jobs? The youth of this country want pakki naukri [assured jobs].”
Former Bihar deputy chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav said the budget had “disappointed the people of Bihar”.
“A revival plan was needed to take Bihar on the path of progress and for which a special package along with the status of a special state is urgently needed,” he wrote in Hindi on X.
“Those who call routine allocation and previously approved, determined and allocated schemes as new gifts should not insult Bihar. To stop migration, remove the backwardness of the state and for the better future of youth along with industries, we will not step back even an inch from our demand for special state status.”
The opposition in Andhra Pradesh, the YSRCP, has also lashed out at the TDP and the Union government after the budget announcement.
In a statement on X in Telugu, the party asked whether the Rs 15,000 crore announced by the Union government was a loan or a grant.
“Now the Union finance minister has announced that Rs 15,000 crore will be allocated through various agencies in the next few years. Does this mean that this Rs 15,000 crore is being given as a loan? Or is it a grant? How can it benefit the state if it is given a loan? What did [TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu] say? What is going on? By when will the capital reach its completion? Isn’t this cheating the people?” it said in a post in Telugu on X.
Response of government on unemployment ‘too little’
At a press conference on Tuesday, former finance minister P. Chidambaram said that while he was glad that Sitharaman had taken ideas from the Congress’s election manifesto, the government’s moves on unemployment are “too little”.
“The response of the government is too little and will have only little impact on the grave unemployment situation. The claim that the schemes announced by the FM will benefit 290 lakh persons is highly exaggerated,” he said.
Chidambaram said that the budget had also ignored the farmers’ demand for a legal guarantee for minimum support prices as well as demands to scrap the Agniveer scheme and provide jobs in the armed forces.
“While some relief has been given to the tax-paying citizen in the 0-20 per cent tax bracket, no relief — I repeat, no relief at all — has been given to the poorer sections of the people, especially those who are non-tax paying wage labourers and casual/daily labourers. The government seems to be blissfully ignorant of its own statistics that wages have stagnated in the last six years while inflation is raging. And such workers are not paid a decent minimum wage,” he added.
The opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist) called the budget “contractionary and regressive” and said it did not focus on “expanding economic activities” to address high levels of inflation and unemployment.
“In the context of the economic realities of high levels of unemployment, high food inflation rate, unprecedented widening of inequalities and the slowing down of private investment, the budget should have focused on expanding economic activities. Instead, its proposals are contractionary and regressive. This will only impose further miseries on the people and depress the levels of investment and employment generation,” it said in a statement.
Actor Kamal Haasan, who heads the Tamil Nadu-based Makkal Needhi Maiam party, said on X: “Congratulations on a NDA budget, hope to have a INDIA Budget soon,” referring to the opposition INDIA bloc.