New Delhi, Mar 29(PTI) The Opposition BJP termed the Kejriwal government’s ‘Rozgar’ budget “disappointing”, as it showed a decline in GDP and rise in fiscal deficit.
Participating in a discussion on the budget in Delhi Assembly’s budget session, Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri claimed in a statement that the GDP growth rate in the seven years of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has “come down to 67.7 per cent as against 147.6 per cent earlier”.
“Delhi’s fiscal deficit is increasing continuously,” he said. In 2020-21, it increased to Rs 9,972.96 crore. This deficit has almost doubled in 2021-22 to Rs 18,776.67 crore, he said in the House.
“This budget is disappointing and directionless. The Delhi government could not provide permanent jobs to more than two lakh people working in its departments on a temporary basis. These include contract workers, guest teachers, Anganwadi workers and helpers, Asha workers, and vocational trainers,” Bidhuri said, referring to the budget promise of creating 20 lakh jobs by the AAP government in the next five years.
The government has also failed on education, health, transport and other fronts, Bidhuri charged.
“On May 19, 2019, in a tweet, Chief Minister Kejriwal said that we have built 22 thousand classrooms in Delhi in five years. On February 19, 2022, he tweeted that we have got 20 thousand rooms built. Now the government is saying that 13 thousand 181 rooms have been built. What is true and what is false, only the government can tell us,” he said.
As the chief minister rose to speak on the budget, the BJP legislators raised slogans demanding that Kejriwal apologise for allegedly making “mockery” of Kashmiri Pandits.
Speaker Ram Niwas Goel ordered marshals to remove BJP MLAs Anil Bajpai and Jitendra Mahajan. Following this the Leader of Opposition and other party MLAs boycotted the chief minister’s speech. PTI VIT CK
