India: 'Voter-oriented’ budget precedes spring polls

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – Aiming to win over voters, the Narendra Modi right-wing government in India on Friday presented its last interim budget before the country goes to polls this spring.

In the budget, the government gives tax rebates to those having income up to 500,000 Indian rupees ($6,998), and farmers with less than two hectares of land are to get 6,000 rupees ($83.98) a year, in addition to a larger pension scheme for unorganized sector workers.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and its opposition led by the Indian National Congress (INC), are working furiously to woo voters ahead of polls in April and May.

Indian farmers have expressed anger with Modi, an anger which recently cost his party three major local elections.

Modi called his budget a plan for a “new India,” “for all Indians.”

G Sampath, social affairs editor at reputable Indian daily The Hindu, told Anadolu Agency from New Delhi that the “fairly cavalier budget” has scant respect for numbers.

“By convention, this was supposed to be not a full-fledged budget but a vote-on-account or an ‘interim budget,’ since this government has less than 90 days of its tenure left. Instead … [it presents] what one might call a 'pretend-full budget' … ahead of the 2019 elections,” he added.

An opinion piece written by Mihir Swarup Sharma for Indian broadcaster NDTV said as one of its final acts in office, Modi “has abandoned yet another important bipartisan tradition … a sixth, real budget from a government facing re-election, for the first time in India's history.”

Sampath said the new benefits in the budget “have more to do with perception management than delivering a meaningful benefit to their intended beneficiaries, be it farmers or unorganized sector workers.”

Mallikarjun Kharge, opposition leader in parliament, accused Modi’s government of “bribing” voters ahead of the polls, local daily The Indian Express reported.

On the budget, economist Jayati Ghosh wrote in The Wire: “The aggregate macroeconomic impact of this budget cannot really be assessed, since the actual fiscal stance is now so opaque. It’s all smoke and mirrors, once again.”