#Budget2024: P Chidambaram’s Sharp Jibe ; Says Finance Minister Adopted Ideas From Congress Manifesto; And Insists Response Towards Unemployment Too Little

Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has “virtually adopted” the ideas underlying his party’s proposals on Employment-linked Incentive (ELI) scheme, apprenticeship scheme with an allowance to the apprentice, and on the abolition of Angel Tax.

“I wish she had adopted many more ideas from the Congress’ manifesto (for the Lok Sabha polls),” the former Union finance minister said at a press conference at the AICC headquarters on the Union Budget as reported by PTI . Unemployment is the “biggest challenge facing country” and the response of the government is “too little and will have only little impact on the grave situation”, he said. Chidambaram also said that nothing in the Budget Speech “gives us the confidence that the government will seriously tackle the issue of inflation”.

The government, he alleged, also seems to be “blissfully ignorant” of its own statistics that wages have stagnated in the last six years.

Demanding the scrapping of the short-term military recruitment scheme Agnipath, he said several political parties, including the Congress, have demanded that the scheme be scrapped forthwith. However, these is no response from the government, Chidambaram said.