Underwhelming budget; focuses on Delhi, Bihar voters, lacks vision: Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi, Feb 1 (PTI) Describing the Union Budget as "underwhelming", Congress leader Shashi Tharoor slammed the BJP-led Centre on Saturday for its "short-term thinking" in targeting the voters of Delhi and Bihar, and asserted that a far more visionary approach was needed to take the country out of the morass into which it might be sinking.

In an interview to PTI at the news agency's headquarters here, Tharoor said he did not even hear the words "unemployment" and "inflation" from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her budget speech.

Referring to the announcement that individuals earning up to Rs 12 lakh annually will not have to pay any income tax under the new tax regime, Tharoor said it would benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that the "freebies" for Bihar would also get it votes, but slammed the approach as "short-term thinking".

"The fact is that if you have a job and you are earning Rs 12 lakh or less, you have reasons to be happy. If you do not have a job, it is not clear from this budget where the job is going to come from. If you are living in Bihar and you are from an ally (of the BJP) party, no doubt you get the sops that will help you with the elections, which is a very curious message this government has sent," Tharoor told PTI.

"Middle-class tax cut for the Delhi voters and lots of freebies for Bihar. But this is the same party that talks of 'one nation, one election'. I am sure that the people of Andhra Pradesh are thinking, 'if we also had an election at this time, we would have gotten lots of freebies too'," he said.

The former Union minister said this shows that it is good to have different elections in different years because then Bihar benefits more than it would have done otherwise.

"Broadly speaking, what are the major challenges facing the economy? We have a major unemployment issue, youth unemployment is at record levels and even college-educated youth are facing large levels of unemployment. What has been done for that is not clear from what we heard this morning," he said.

Asked about the announcement that individuals earning up to Rs 12 lakh annually will not have to pay any income tax under the new tax regime, the member of Parliament from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram said if one has got a job and a salary of less than Rs 12 lakh, it will certainly improve his situation, but if one does not have a job, that person's problems have not been addressed.

"If your income is probably higher than Rs 1 lakh a month, you are very much middle class. We will have to see how much you benefit. The real problem is this government's whole approach on tax benefit, which is that it only addresses one aspect. With elections coming up in Delhi, where a substantial number of voters may benefit from it, that is clearly going to help the BJP to attract their votes," he said.

"Similarly, with a number of freebies being announced for Bihar, it will clearly get you votes, but that kind of short-term thinking is not what we need at this time. We need something far more visionary to take this country out of the morass into which it may slowly be sinking," Tharoor added.

Hitting out at the government, he asked that for manufacturing to pick up, where is the investment going to come from.

"FDI is fleeing this country, domestic investment is stagnant, no one is putting more money into the economy. You are looking at a situation where manufacturing has plunged below 20 per cent of the GDP," Tharoor said.

The Congress leader asserted that the fundamental issues and challenges facing the economy have not been addressed in the budget.