Bengaluru: The union budget proposed by Piyush Goyal was criticised by many political leaders including Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. He said that the expectation of a people-friendly budget in the election year has been dampened. He further ridiculed that the government that the budget might have been prepared either in the BJP or RSS headquarters.

He questioned how many farmers would actually get the Rs 6,000 allowance announced for them.

“In the central budget, Rs 75000 Crore has been allotted to 12 crores farmers but if it materialises, 59 lakh farmers of Karnataka would get only Rs 3,579 Crore whereas the state government has given a loan waiver of Rs 48000 Crore. Prime Minister Modi had mocked our waiver as ‘lollypop.’ Now he should term the amount allotted to farmers in the union budget as ‘cotton candy’,” he said.

“This budget is not very clear and has disappointed everyone but the BJP is praising it. There is nothing about NAREGA in the budget and the BJP MPs from the state could not give any direction to the much awaited suburban railways in the state.

When compared to the Centre, the state government’s policies are people-friendly. The farmers are given Rs 11000 Crore electricity subsidy, Rs 1200 Crore milk subsidy in spite of the drought situation in the state,” Kumaraswamy said.

Minister D K Shivakumar and other leaders of the state Congress party mocked the budget calling it “popcorn budget.”