Budget did not address ground realities, mostly jumlebazi: BSP supremo Mayawati

BSP president Mayawati called the Budget presented Friday by the BJP-led government `jumlebazi', or empty rhetoric, that did not address the ground realities. She claimed that economic disparities had grown during the last five years with only a handful of capitalists benefiting, instead of farmers and the poor.

"This is wrong and against the interest of the country," she said in a statement. "The last Budget of the BJP government before the elections is far from the ground reality and the bitter truth, and is mostly jumlebazi,' the Bahujan Samaj Party chief said.

"Jumlebazi cannot change the destiny of the country and end longstanding problems like poverty, unemployment and inflation," she said. "It needs a firm resolve to solve them, which has been absent in the governments at the helm so far at the Centre," she said.

She claimed the Budget was "unsettling" for the common people, and compared it to "unfulfilled electoral promises" and decisions like demonetisation and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Mayawati claimed the benefit of Central schemes meant for labourers, farmers and the poor had not reached the needy, but the "capitalists" had gained.

Referring to the coming Lok Sabha elections, the BSP president urged people to evaluate the "wrong policies and the arrogance" of the BJP government. She asked them not to fall prey to its efforts to "divert attention from its failures by inciting religious sentiments".

(With inputs from agencies.)