BJP, Congress pooh-pooh AAP government's Delhi budget

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta today dubbed the AAP government's 2016-17 budget a "clever excercise" to hide its "failure" to keep the poll promises made to the people of the city.

Reacting to the budget tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in the Assembly, Gupta alleged the government has "failed" to strengthen its financial position despite revision of VAT rate among other measures.

"Sisodia's speech cleverly hides the failure of the government to achieve it 17-point poll promises made to citizens of Delhi on the eve of the Assembly polls in 2015.

"The speech of the Finance Minister is old wine in a new bottle. It projects a number of schemes of the year 2015-16 which could not be implemented during the current financial year. Mr. Sisodia is a good repackage master," he said in a statement.

The BJP MLA claimed the Delhi government had earmarked an allocation of Rs 19,000 crores under the plan head during the current financial year.

"But it has been reduced to Rs 16,400 crore, reflecting a short expenditure of Rs 2,600 crore. But the actual expenditure till March 31 would be only Rs 10,000 crore reflecting actual short expenditure of Rs 9,000 crore," he said.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Ajay Maken reacting to the budget, tweeted "Delhi FM building a case for failure non-spending of funds - Education, health Budget doubled but spent much less Performance Failure hailed (sic),".