Budget: PM like Aurangzeb, says BJP
Express News Service, The Indian Express
March 13, 2008
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/283700.html

Launching a scathing attack on the UPA Government, the BJP on Wednesday called the Union Budget “communal” and compared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Mughal ruler Aurangzeb for his alleged remarks that Muslims had the first right over the state’s resources.

“In the Budget, the Government said if a Muslim student goes for higher education he would be entitled to scholarship. Why is it that there is nothing for a poor Hindu student or a Dalit student? Doesn’t it amount to encouraging conversion?” BJP Parliamentary Party leader V K Malhotra said in Lok Sabha.

Accusing the Centre of resorting to vote-bank politics, Malhotra said, by saying that Muslims had the first right on the Government resources, the PM had become the first person after Aurangzeb to have said such a thing. “This is like bringing back Jizya,” he said, adding, “We believe in justice for all and appeasement to none.”

He said a situation was being created which existed just before the creation of Pakistan.

“No communalisation of Budget and no Jizya,” Malhotra said, as agitated members from the Government demanded that his remarks be expunged. Claiming that terrorists were minting money out of the country’s stock exchanges, he said the fall in the Sensex soon after the Budget was a result of withdrawal of huge amounts of money by the foreign financial institutions.

Later, during the general discussion on the Budget, the Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver drew flak from both the BJP and Left MPs. “The Budget has spoken of ‘tokenism’ but has failed to address many issues related to economy,” CPI (M) MP Rupchand Pal said. Questioning the loan waiver, Pal asked about the fate of the farmers who had paid back their debts with great hardship. “You should not divide our farmers,” he said.

Supporting the Budget “hesitatingly”, BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy said the waiver for four crore farmers translated into a benefit of Rs 15,000 per farmer. However, calling it a “sinister move to confuse the people”, Satpathy said the waiver was a way of telling the people that if they become conscious defaulters, every few years a Government would waive it. He added that by this kind of a largesse, the Government was spoiling the farmers and was creating a mindset where waiver is condoned by the lowest in society. He said the Rs 60,000 crore figure was given out of thin air and no sources of funding were highlighted in the Budget.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MP Suresh Prabhu maintained that the waiver would not be of any help to 52 percent farmers who have taken loans from moneylenders. He demanded that compensation be given to the widows of the farmers who committed suicides in the past few years.