Why is INDI Alliance protesting Union Budget 2024 in Parliament? Did FM ‘ignore’ non-NDA states?

The Union Budget 2024 has left the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the INDI Alliance divided. The Opposition bloc parties have dubbed Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget discriminatory and have decided to stage protests inside and outside Parliament.

A meeting of INDI bloc parties was held Tuesday evening at Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge’s 10 Rajaji Marg residence in New Delhi. At the gathering of floor leaders, a decision was taken to protest the Union Budget 2024.

But what is grouse? We take a look.

What happened at the meeting?

Kharge, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress’ deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari, Congress’ deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, Nationalist Congress Party (SCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, Trinamool Congress leaders Derek O’Brien and Kalyan Banerjee, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s T R Baalu, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Mahua Maji, Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh, and Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s John Brittas, among others, attended the meeting on Tuesday evening.

Congress general secretaries KC Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh were also present.

What are the Congress’s allegations?

“The concept of a budget has already been destroyed by this year’s Union Budget. They have completely discriminated against most of the states. So the general sentiment of the INDIA bloc meeting was we have to protest against this,” Venugopal told reporters after the meeting.

Later, in a post on X, Venugopal said, “The Union Budget presented today [July 23] was extremely discriminatory and dangerous, which completely goes against the principles of federalism and fairness that the Union Government must follow.”

“This government’s attitude is completely antithetical to Constitutional principles. We will not participate in an event that is solely designed to hide the true, discriminatory colours of this regime,” he said.

Congress MP Pramod Tiwari alleged that the budget had “blacked out” states where there are non-BJP governments.

“We will hold a protest tomorrow in the Parliament regarding this. We will raise our voice inside Parliament and outside also… This is not the budget of the BJP, it is the budget of the whole country, but they have presented it as if it is the BJP’s budget… This budget is against the federal structure of the country,” he alleged

But Congress is not the only one miffed.

What are other parties saying?

At least four chief ministers, including three from Congress, are expected to
boycott the July 27 NITI Aayog meeting against the “discriminatory” Union Budget.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin will be skipping the gathering, he announced on Tuesday evening. His state suffered the “biggest betrayal” in the budget, he said. He was discontent with the Centre’s fiscal policies and allocations have “consistently ignored the needs and demands of Tamil Nadu”.

Stalin said that the drastic reduction in the allocation of welfare schemes would

“directly impact the most vulnerable sections of our society”, according to a report in The Indian Express. He pointed out that no new initiatives were introduced to support the development of Tamil Nadu.

“The state government has been continuously demanding a fair share of central funds, but this budget has once again ignored our legitimate demands… It is also disappointing to note that there has been no increase in the allocation for infrastructure development in Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said.

DMK MPs are also expected to stage a protest on Wednesday.

The Congress CMs, who will skip the NITI Aayog meeti, include Telangana’s Revanth Reddy, Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah, and Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.

“We don’t feel Kannadigas are heard, and hence there is no point in attending the NITI Aayog meeting. We have decided to boycott the NITI Aayog meeting, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27, as a mark of protest,” said Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah in an online post.

West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan have also criticised the Budget for ignoring their states.

Banerjee too has said she will boycott the NITI Aayog meeting, according to a report in the Deccan Herald. She called the budget “politically biased”.

“It is an anti-poor, anti-people, and politically biased Budget,” Banerjee told the media in her chamber in the West Bengal Assembly. She accused the NDA government of “being envious of West Bengal” and said that the state received a “big zero” in the budgetary allocations.

According to the Kerala CM, the budget has been politically motivated. “Projects have been announced in the budget targeting the political survival of the central government ignoring the majority of the states. “The budget, which claims to have eight national priorities, ignores most states, including Kerala,” he added.

In Maharashtra, the opposition parties slammed the Centre. The Sharad Pawar-led faction of the NCP and the Shiv Sena (UBT) have criticised the Budget for favouring
Bihar and Andhra.

Did non-NDA states feature in budget speech?

The states of Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala do not appear in the Budget speech.

Sitharaman mentioned Jharkhand and West Bengal once in her speech as part of a holistic developmental project in Eastern India. “The states in the Eastern part of the country are rich in endowments and have strong cultural traditions. We will formulate a plan, Purvodaya, for the all-round development of the eastern region of the country covering Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. This will cover human resource development, infrastructure, and generation of economic opportunities to make the region an engine to attain Viksit Bharat,” said the FM.

Jharkhand is ruled by the INDIA bloc party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

The Congress-ruled state of Himachal Pradesh was mentioned once by the finance minister. She said that the state suffered extensive losses because of floods last year. “Our government will provide assistance to the state for reconstruction and rehabilitation through multilateral development assistance,” she said.