Opposition tears into Jaitley's Union Budget, Rahul says it has 'no vision'

Soon after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the 2017-18 Union Budget, the Congress labelled it a damp squib which lacked vision. The party slammed it for not having enough provisions for job creation - a promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his election campaign in 2014.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said they were expecting fireworks, but it was a budget ofsher-o-shayari (urdu poetry). "There was nothing for the farmers and the youth," said Rahul, who went on to add, "The main issue facing India today is creation of jobs. How are you going to solve that problem? On that front there was nothing. No vision, no idea and, for farmers, absolutely nothing."

The Gandhi scion said it was 'shameful' that farmers found 'no mention' in the budget. "Farmers are suffering and there is a need for waiving their loans. There was nothing in the budget. These are fundamental issues," he added.

Several other senior Congress leaders took to Twitter to express their disappointment over the Budget. The party's chief spokesperson, RS Surjewala, called it a "staid, unenterprising jugglery of figures to divert attention".

Surjewala, in a series of tweets, targetted the government for being "zero on job creation" and tweeted, "No roadmap or numbers to fulfill PM Modi's promise of 2 crore jobs a year. Where are the jobs Mr. Modi & Mr. Jaitley?"

Reacting to the Budget, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel said: "The Budget is disappointing. It has no road map for creation of jobs, increase in farmer income and decrease in house prices."

He went on to add that informal workers, small traders, farmers, women, students and central police personnel have all been left out in this budget. "Many times they said budget will be in favor of poor,women and those in rural areas. But if you scratch the surface there is nothing. Surprisingly, compared to last year, social sector & SC/ST spending has reduced. Publicity expenditure has gone up," Patel tweeted.

Congress leaders also raised the ill-effects of the demonetisation and Patel pointed out: "Where has the windfall received from petrol and diesel taxes gone? And clearly there is no windfall & relief from demonetisation."

Even Surjewala claimed that India's poor, farmers and middle class deserved a "balm of respite" from the losses suffered by demonetisation but that wasn't the case. "What about collapsing private investment? What's the roadmap for its revival? FII's have withdrawn ₹76000Cr post demonetisation," Surjewala tweeted.