Interim Budget makes no attempt to woo voters, says Harsh Gupta

Sitharaman also highlighted that the private sector has been allowed into the “core strategic” sectors and the government wants to have only “minimum presence” in these sectors.

Market investor and author Harsh Gupta 'Madhusudhan' on February 1 told Moneycontrol that he was surprised that the government did not make any attempt to woo the voters in the Interim Budget 2024.

He said, "I have never seen an election budget like this where there was no attempt to woo voters”. FM Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 announced the Interim Budget, ahead of the general elections that are expected to be held from April 2024.

The government decided not to revise the tax slab resulting in both surprise and criticism from stakeholders. Gupta was a part of a panel discussion on the Interim Budget along with BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam, political analyst Tehseen Poonawala and Congress leader Mohan Kumaramangalam.

Kumaramangalam criticised the budget noting that the government’s 'real income' could not have gone up by 50 per cent as the FM had claimed in her budget speech. He said, "Private investment is not taking the lead for a long time because demand is not robust. I could not believe that real income has gone up. There has been no progress in the education and health space.”

Poonawala said, "This is one of the worst budgets I have ever seen in my life. It was like a political speech read out by the government.” He further stated that the government's data was not accurate.

Islam, however, defended the budget stating that since it was in interim budget, the announcements were primarily in the nature of giving a direction to the government’s thinking. He said, "Government’s priority is growth, rural economy, common man, youth, reaping demographic dividend. Full-fledged budget presented in July will capture all the aspirations of the government.”

Gupta said, "(The) Larger story is that the government has, through vision or through luck, hit on a formula that works. It is a formula based on capex, supply side, Production Linked Incentives (PLI) and industrialisation while giving a safety net at the bottom. For example, 800 million people get subsidised food grains. I was actually surprised at how politically confident the government is".

Kumaramangalam, however, noted that the government is 'over confident' . He said, "Government is over confident about riding high about the Ram Temple phenomenon, which they are going to milk as much as possible. Hindutva seems to be the one strategy".

Islam, however, denied the suggestion the government was 'over confident' and noted that the government has delivered on people's expectations. According to Islam, the government is confident of winning the elections and announcing a budget after the general elections. He said the government had delivered on people’s expectations and that the direction of the upcoming budget in July had also been given in the Interim Budget.

Poonawala noted that there were some real problems facing the country now. He said, " Real income has actually reduced, there is real inflation, there is a real lack of jobs and there are no real savings."

Dismissing Poonawala's claims Gupta said, “It is not right to mention that there is no real income growth in India over the last 9-10 years when the economy has nearly doubled. Small and medium corporations are raising money through capital markets and there is generation of employment."

Gupta said, "It was a satisfactory to good Interim Budget, on the whole.” He, however, criticised the budget for not increasing the capital expenditure in comparison to last year's. He said the government had set the target so high at 35 percent in 2023, that the 11 percent in 2024 seems low.

Islam, however, called it a balanced approach, considering it was an Interim Budget.

Watch the full panel discussion here.