Nirmala Sitharaman tried to close any possibility of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar exiting the NDA.
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Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman;
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Budget speeches are always filled with grim statistics couched in flowery prose. In the past, finance ministers have often borrowed couplets to add levity to their harsh words. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the 2024 Budget in Parliament without showing any interest in poetry.
Sitharaman got straight to the point as she detailed Bihar’s package in the Budget. After a while, she seemed to conclude that Bihar alone can realise “Bhikshit Bharat by 2047”. She reminisced about the old days when Union Railway Ministers from Bihar used to fill the Railway Budget with details of new trains and projects for Bihar.
The fear of BJP’s Nitish Kumar
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on multiple occasions in the past and has repeatedly vowed not to do so again, even repeating his pledge in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi while campaigning for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Sitharaman sought to close all doors for the Bihar chief minister to exit the NDA, saying ahead of the Budget presentation that it would no longer be possible for any new states to be elevated to special category status.
His two saviours are Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Chief Minister N. Chandra Babu Naidu, who, ironically, had previously left the NDA and been fierce critics of Modi.
The Bihar chief minister is battling a steep decline in his political image as floods spark local conflict and a worsening law and order situation tests his administrative skills.
As Nitish gears up for the Bihar Assembly elections next year, Bihar will be a big test for the BJP as both the JD(U) and the BJP will be trying to remain in power. Sitharaman has laid out a scenario for both the JD(U) and the BJP to retain their grip in Bihar.
Bihar Budget: Charm offensive
The two new expressways, from Patna to Purnia and Buxar to Bhagalpur, will be music to the ears of Biharis, thousands of whom end up taking the gruelling 16-hour bus journey from Delhi to Bihar.
The industrial hub at Gaya in the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor is like rain in a drought, as Bihar has almost no industries to speak of, with Jamshedpur and Jashdi shifting to Jharkhand following bifurcation of the states.
Even more impressive are the proposals for a power station at Pirpainti in Bhagalpur and the Kashi Vishwanath Model for redeveloping the most popular temples at Bodh Gaya and Rajgir, as well as developing a world-class tourism industry at Nalanda.
Sitharaman also announced Rs 1,150 crore in financial support for irrigation and flood mitigation projects, before the Bihar chief minister said “do more”. Modi will be confident that he has now firmly eradicated any bitterness against Kumar and strengthened his position for the upcoming elections.
The special package for Bihar surpassed the proposal for Andhra Pradesh in both quantity and quality.Unlike the JD(U), the TDP did not demand special category status in the cross-party meeting before the Assembly session.
The BJP feels that things will get tough for them as Naidu will have to take Modi’s support to set up the Andhra Pradesh capital in Amravati.
The BJP is gearing up for state assembly elections in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Haryana later this year, which are already worrying its strategists, with unemployment threatening to derail the party’s campaign in the three states.
The BJP suffered major setbacks in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan after failing to achieve its ambitious targets, with comprehensive surveys blaming the unemployment crisis for hampering its electoral dominance.
PM Modi seeks youth connectivity
The urgency of creating jobs has also been apparent in the ruling government, where Sitharaman announced the Prime Minister’s Employment Linked Incentive Scheme, which aims to create 29 crore jobs besides internships for 10 million youth.
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Viashnau said at a press conference after the budget presentation that efforts were underway to fill 40,000 vacancies in the state transport company. Sitharaman’s proposal, along with an infrastructure budget of Rs 11.11 trillion, aims to provide interest-free assistance of Rs 1.5 trillion over 50 years to states to jump-start their economies and boost job creation.
Sitharaman mentioned “railways” expenditure only once in her budget speech and did not mention any “grand schemes” for infrastructure, believing she was merely repeating what had been proposed in the interim budget and previous budget speeches. PMGSY Phase IV is a good example of repackaging of old schemes in the budget.
Speaking at a press conference after the budget presentation, Vaishnaw acknowledged that the railway budget includes already-announced proposals to build 2,500 general passenger coaches this year and another 10,000 thereafter, as well as rural and urban housing and solar power schemes.
It is often political expediency that drives the economy and Sitharaman made it clear that Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and the youth are the three pillars of her Union Budget. The promise to tackle the issue of a new pension scheme quickly underlined the BJP’s focus on electoral expediency. Babs It is not an immediate threat.
(The author is a veteran journalist based in Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint does not endorse these and is not responsible for them.)
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