New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday jabbed finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman after she presented the Union Budget 2024-25, calling it the ‘Congress Manifesto’.
Former Union finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said on X,”I am glad to know that the Hon’ble FM has read the Congress Manifesto LS 2024 after the election results. I am happy she has virtually adopted the Employment-linked incentive (ELI) outlined on page 30 of the Congress Manifesto.”
“I am also happy that she has introduced the Apprenticeship scheme along with an allowance to every apprentice spelt out on page 11 of the Congress Manifesto. I wish the FM had copied some other ideas in the Congress Manifesto. I shall shortly list the missed opportunities,” Chidambaram, who served as finance minister in past governments led by HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Dr Manmohan Singh, added.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also slammed the Modi government, saying, “After ten years of denial – where neither the non-biological PM nor his party’s Lok Sabha Elections Manifesto would even mention jobs – the Union Government seems to have finally come around to tacitly admitting that mass unemployment is a national crisis that requires urgent attention.”
“It’s far too late, and as it turns out, far too little – the Budget speech is more focused on posturing than action,” he added in a series of X posts.
