'A Farewell Budget'

In his budget speech today Shri Pranab Mukherjee did well to recall that the UPA Government had been elected in 2004 on the basis of the promises made to the Aam Admi.

At the end of this government's 5-year tenure there may be people in the top financial brackets who may be happy that they have become multi-millionaires or billionaires, but the Aam Admi feels badly let down.

Soaring prices of essential commodities, more particularly food stuffs, have made the house-hold budget of the middle class and poor go absolutely haywire. Since last year an even more agonising problem has been the problem of rapidly mounting unemployment initially because of our own mismanagement of the economy, and later because of the global meltdown.

In his speech Shri Mukherjee said "the real heroes of India's success story were our farmers. Through their hard work, they ensured 'food security' for the country." What a cruel irony it is that thisgovernment hails farmers for providing food security to the country and yet in these very 5-years tens of thousands of Kisans have been committing suicide. Farmers provided the nation with food security, andgovernment has miserably failed to provide even security of life to these "real heroes"!

This is the last budget of UPA's 5-year term. This is indeed a farewell budget, and it does provide ample justification why the people also should bid farewell to the Congress and this government.