Minister: “Every State Benefits…”Regarding “Discriminatory” Budget Charge

The opposition said on Tuesday that the Budget 2024 was “discriminatory” and gave states controlled by parties in favour of preferential treatment. However, Union Minister Hardeep Puri refuted this claim. In an exclusive interview with NDTV, he declared, “Every state in the country benefits from the central government schemes.”

On Tuesday, the Indian bloc parties resolved to oppose the Union Budget’s “discrimination” against the states run by the opposition both within and outside of Parliament. In an effort to protest the Budget, the leader of the DMK, MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, and all other chief ministers in the Congress would also not be attending the July 27 NITI Aayog conference.

Mr. Puri called on “all his friends in the opposition” towards “read the Budget and the related Budget document, the annexure, and you will come to the conclusion that you have to pick on some better point for criticism than this because you will be laughed out of court if you only go on harping on this” .

In response to the opposition parties’ claims, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier said that the Budget had guaranteed “Rs 1.5 lakh crore assistance” for all states.