Union Budget for country, not state specific: Naidu

New Delhi: Terming the demand of opposition parties to defer the Budget Session as “anti-people”, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said the Union Budget is for the country and would not be state specific.

“No budget means no development, no welfare. Is this what you want? And no support to poor people, no support to farmers, is that what your wish is? Why are you opposing? Budget is budget,” Naidu said.

He was responding to a question regarding opposition parties’ demand that the presentation of the Union Budget on February 1, ahead of the Assembly elections in five states, be deferred till March 8, the last day of voting.

Speaking to reporters here, Naidu said the budget would not be state specific. “The budget will be about the people, their future, what are the taxation proposals, what is the revenue model…It will be presented before the Parliament, that is for the country, it will not be state specific,” the Information and Broadcasting minister said.

He said that he was not able to understand the objection raised by the opposition. “At the end of the day, they are afraid that all their efforts at disinformation against the Modi government have failed and the latest disinformation of the opposition on demonetisation is boomranging on them. They have realised, you have seen survey after survey,” he added.

He claimed that even in Uttar Pradesh there is a massive support for demonetisation because of which the opposition parties are rattled.

“Now they have changed their agenda again and are trying to now stop the budget which is an anti-people move again, which will again boomerang on them,” he added.

Asked about the feud in Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Naidu said BJP would contest the UP election on the issue of development. He said the issue was not who is the victor within the family but that people gave the party a chance for five years and it did not fulfill their promises.

He said several of the states which were in the group called ‘BIMARU’ earlier like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh developed after BJP governments were formed there.

On a question about TMC, Naidu said there were some allegations which were made in the past and the government was allowing investigative agencies to do their job independently.