Left slams Budget, may move cut motions

CRITICISING BUDGET: CPI-M has hinted at moving amendments to the Finance Bill.

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New Delhi: Dubbing the budget as high on rhetoric and low on steps to tame inflation and the agrarian crisis Left parties on Wednesday hinted at moving amendments to the Finance Bill if the UPA Government failed to take corrective measures.

Coming down heavily on the budget, CPI-M said that the Government has failed to deliver resources to warrant its rhetoric that the budget serves the cause of the crisis-ridden peasantry, the working people and the poor.

As quoted by PTI, CPI-M Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said, "We will move amendments to the Budget. We want correctives to be carried out by the government".

Bringing the Congress-led coalition under renewed pressure, the party said Finance Minister P Chidambaram failed to seriously address the problems of unemployment and inflation and did not exploit the many opportunities for additional resource mobilisation, especially by taxing the rich whose income shares have increased.

In a scathing criticism the Polit Bureau said, "In the context of the inflationary crisis affecting the economy, Budget 2007-08 comes as a disappointment. He has kept expenditure increases under a tight leash while restructuring it in a way that goes against the interest of the working people and the state governments."

There was no word in the budget on granting price support to farmers to prevent suicides, on employment generation and on implementation of "pro-people" commitments in the Common Minimum Programme, Yechury said.

"There are some references to the Left wish-list here and there, but these are not matched by adequate allocations," he added.