Union finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, under Opposition attack over her union budget in parliament for days, today came prepared to address their long list of grouses. The biggest of these had come from chief ministers of Opposition-ruled states — that all the largesse has been directed at two NDA allies, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
For days, the finance minister has been pointing out that the budget speech is only the highlights and all states have received their share. Today she took it a step further, presenting the results after trawling through the budget speeches of the UPA era.
"I have been picking up on Budgets since 2004-5. In 2004-5, 17 states were not named in the budget speech. 16 states not named in 2006-07… In 2009, 26 states were not named — Bihar and UP," she said. "I want to ask the UPA government — did money not go to those states," she added, while responding to the debate over the budget.
"I humbly state that all members know that if a state is not named doesn't mean money does not go to them. It is a misleading campaign. It pains me to know that they could say that if you have not mentioned a state state, it gets nothing," she said.
"If you want to distort, create a sense of fear you can go about distorting data. In the last few years, we have ministers go to each state and explain how much is given to each state," th eministr added..