Sitharaman, Kharge spar over ‘injustice’ to oppnruled states

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday sparred with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the House over the budget, with the former alleging that Oppositionruled states have not received any funds, a charge Sitharaman dismissed. She said while allocations have been made, it is not possible to name each state in a speech. Soon after the Upper House met, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar called upon Kharge to speak. “There is nothing in the budget for states and their plates are empty. The plates of two states have pakoras and jalebis but the other states have nothing. There is nothing for Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, “Chhattisgarh or Delhi or even Odisha. All funds have been given to keep some people happy and to save their seat (power),” he said. balance, how will development take place? All Opposition parties condemn this,” Kharge said. But when Sitharaman, who was present in the House, the Opposition walked out. At this, Dhankhar lamented that the LoP has “under a ploy and strategy” misused the opportunity given to him by the chair and caused this disruption “as a weapon”. However, Sitharaman continued with her response and maintained that in a budget speech one does not get an opportunity to name every state. “This is a deliberate attempt by Congress to give an impression to the people that nothing has been given to our state… I challenge the Congress party that for all the budget speeches that they have delivered, in each of those speeches they have named all the states? This is an outrageous allegation,” she said.The FM said between the Vote on Account presented in February and the budget, Maharashtra had not been named but the Union cabinet had approved a ₹76,000 crore project for building a port at Vadhavan (in Palghar district). When Trinamool MPs joined the Opposition protest and shouted that “injustice” has been done to West Bengal in the budget, Sitharaman said the state government has not implemented several central schemes and cited the example of Ayushman Bharat.