Oppn slams UP budget as 'directionless'

The opposition today picked holes in the maiden budget presented by the Yogi Adityanath government and alleged that the proposals mentioned in the document were meant to "befool" the people of Uttar Pradesh.
"The budget is directionless, anti-farmer, anti-poor, anti-youth, anti-student and anti-women," Leader of the Opposition in the UP Assembly Ram Gobind Chaudhary said, as he initiated the discussion on the General Budget 2017-18 presented on Tuesday.
Taking a dig at the government, Chaudhary, who belongs to Samajwadi Party, claimed that, "just as the BJP befooled the people of the state before the 2017 UP Assembly elections, the proposals mentioned in the budget will befool the people of the state in a similar way."

He also took a jibe at the state finance minister.
"The Finance minister (it seemed) was kept in the dark while preparing the budget. As he (Agarwal) was reading the budget, he started wondering what had happened. Then he sat down and eventually stopped reading the budget speech," Chaudhary said, in a lighter vein.
Several members could be seen smiling as Chaudhary kept attacking the treasury benches in his witty manner.

Targeting parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna, he said that, "initially, his voice was loud but by the time he finished the speech, he was virtually trying to catch his breath."

He said that there has been a reduction in budgets of a number of departments and pointed out that it had no budgetary provision for laptops.
Khanna, then aimed a witty retort at Chaudhary, dubbing him a "good actor" and said that "he is so good in acting that veteran Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Prem Chopra and Dilip Kumar will commit suicide seeing his skill."
The witty barbs from both sides led to laughter in both treasury and opposition benches.
Even Chief Minister Yogi Aditynanath was seen enjoying the remarks in lighter vein.