Congress unhappy with WB budget

The West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and its MLAs are unhappy with Amit Mishra's first budget and the digs he takes at the Union budget. Coming on the back of a recent trend of the Congress high command of buckling under pressure from Mamata Banerjee further rankles.

“The buzz word ‘Coalition Dharma’ seems to be effective in Delhi, not in Kolkata,” quipped a Congress MLA after Dr Amit Mitra placed his budget. After, the seat-sharing issues and the removal of Dinesh Trivedi as the RailwayMinister, this comes as quite a shock to the Congress MLAs.

In his budget speech, Dr. Mitra, a blue-eyed boy of Congress government, takes digs at the UPA and covertly the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. He read out in the House from his budget document: “The Government of India has recently taken two decisions which will result in an annual revenue loss of around Rs 1,500 crore in the next financial year. It has unilaterally decided to stop Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation to the state. This has resulted in a loss of revenue for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12 to the tune of Rs 1,800 crore.”

Mamata Banerjee government further criticised the Union Finance Ministry for recent permission to the airlines companies to import Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF). “We collect Sales Tax to the tune of Rs 225 crore every year on sale of ATF, which we fear would substantially reduce on account of import permission granted by the Government of India,” Dr Mitra said in his speech.

Leader of Congress Legislative Party Mohammad Sohrab said, “The state government announced ‘strengthening and widening of 1046 km district roads in 11 backwards districts’ without announcing that it’s completely funded by the Central Government” and announced allocation of additional fund for this. The Centrally sponsored schemes like Indira Awas Yojana or Arsenic Free Water Supply are also claimed as state’s own in the Budget speech. “In fact, most of the schemes, announced for backward regions, are centrally funded. The Chief Minister should have asked her Finance Minister to admit this in the printed document,” said a Congress MLA from South Bengal

PCC President Pradip Bhattacharya was more scathing in his remarks, “Even Union Finance Minister consults with representatives of all political parties, Trade Union, Chambers aid industry bodies to prepare his Budget. Here, Our Party is a partner, but we were not consulted at all in the Budget preparation process. We are ready to cooperate today, but if asked for.”

Leader of the Opposition Dr. Surya Kanta Mishra peeved into strained partnership to mention, “The Finance Minister and his Chief Minister restrained to mention Rs 5618 crore the state will get as share from the centre due to fresh taxation in Union Budget. While the state gets from centre, she doesn’t mention. Ms Banerjee termed covert inflationary trend of Union Budget as ‘tolerable’ which will make commoners’ life miserable, because she will be getting bigger share.” He termed this attitude of snatching more from Congress at Centre and blame Congress in state is ‘double standard’.

The Chief Minister or her Finance Minister gave no clarification on this. But, replying to another question on whether she would seek Special Assistance for the state, Chief Minister quipped, “will not go alone,” hinting formation of another Coalition keeping Congress at bay.