Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala has called the Kerala Budget as "unrealistic", shortly after Kerala Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac presented it in the Kerala Assembly on Friday. “The only highlight of this budget is that the Kerala Finance Minister spoke for more than three hours. Since the LDF government is sure that they will not be coming back to power in the upcoming Assembly elections, therefore they presented this kind of budget,” the opposition leader said in a press conference.
Chennithala added that though the LDF government promised a deficit budget, they have been borrowing more, further affecting Kerala’s economy. “There is no proposal in the budget to move Kerala forward economically,” the opposition leader said.
Chennithala also pointed out that the Kerala government is yet to implement packages and promises made during the previous budget.
“In the last budget, the government had promised support price of rubber at Rs 250. What happened to that promise? The LDF government is only announcing packages but isn’t spending a single penny. The government is yet to implement the fisherfolk’s package from the previous budget,” Chennithala said, adding that the government has once again announced a package only to cheat the fishermen yet again.
Calling the budget a complete waste of time before the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, Chennithala said that the state government is delaying the pay reforms and cheating government employees. “Since the Assembly election is due in April, the state government will not be able to go ahead with the salary revisions. They are cheating the government employees,” he said.
