New Delhi: All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Maharashtra president and Member of Parliament from Aurangabad, Syed Imtiaz Jaleel tore into the central government's recent budget in his speech in Lok Sabha on Thursday as he questioned finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on her promises and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his silence on the ongoing Adani row.
Jaleel began his speech by saying that the central government knew the "magic of giving with one hand and snatching away with the other". He spoke about the increase in the repo rate by the Reserve Bank of India. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI Wednesday increased the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points to 6.50 per cent.
Questioning it, Jaleel said: "On February 8, the RBI increased the repo rate by 25 basis points. On May 4, 2022, the repo rate was 4.40 per cent. In 8 months, the rate was increased six times and it has now shot up to 6.50 percent. "Now some of them," he said while pointing towards the ruling MPs, "will stand up and say it is RBI. It has got nothing to do with us or the budget." For the unversed, the repo rate is the interest rate at which the RBI lends money to commercial banks.
"Listen carefully! When RBI increases the repo rate, any person who has taken a home loan for 20 years (240 months), has to pay EMIs for additional 120 to 160 months given the repo rate has increased by 2.25 percent. Similarly, anyone who has taken a home loan for 25 years (300 months), has to pay EMIs for additional 199 months," Jaleel said.
"This is the spell they cast on us. They give a rebate in the taxes, make the salaried class happy, but then 'zindagi ke saath bhi aur zindagi k baad bhi tumhara EMI chalta rahega, tumhara loan chalta rahega (while you are alive and even after your death, your EMIs will continue, your loan payment will continue)," the AIMIM leader said.
He also questioned the government's budgetary promise of opening 14,500 'PM Shri' schools. "61% of the Rs 112899 crore allocation to education sector will be spent on school education. 14,500 PM Shri schools will be set up. I want to ask about the children who are studying in villages, in zila parishad schools. What about them? Alone in Aurangabad district, according to a government survey, 1,600 schools do not have a pucca roof. These schools function from tin sheds.
The only fault of the children studying there is that they belong to poor families, they are farmers' and laborers' children. You can set up new schools. You have one year left. We will call 'PM Shri' schools 'PM Maha Shri' schools if you are able to change the fate of these 1600 schools in Aurangabad. If you are able to do it in a year, then Imtiaz Jaleel will stand here and say Wah Modi ji wah," he said.
On minorities, the AIMIM Member of Parliament said they were "flowers but you turned them into thorns". "Now you are telling this thorn that it should stop pricking. We won't. We will fight. This country belongs to me as much as it belongs to you. If you do injustice to us, we won't remain silent. We will fight," he said.
Jaleel then questioned the massive cut in the budget allocation for the Minority Affairs ministry. The government reduced the allocation to the Ministry of Minority Affairs for 2023-24 by 38 percent from the previous year. The Budget estimate has come down from Rs 5,020.50 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 3,097 crore.
"What ministry is seeing a budget cut of 38%? Rs 1,913 crore vanish, and you expect us to be silent and accept it," Jaleel added and then quoted from what he said was NITI Aayog policy document. "It says 'Muslims and other religious minorities in India have been lagging in several development indicators including educational attainment, gender equality and workforce participation'. Even after this, you reduce our budget by 38%," he said.
Jaleel said that it was strange that while the country was developing, minorities were allocated the money that they used to get in 2012-13. "The country will march ahead but the minorities will be kept behind. How far can this go?" he asked. A common man is not bothered by GDP, fiscal deficit and other such terms as all he is looking for is to live with respect in this country, the MP said.
Criticizing the union finance minister, Jaleel pointed out how she did not mention the elderly pensioners of EPS 95, increasing farmers' income, or the plight of contract workers in her budget speech. "Across the country, contract workers are facing a lot of injustice. They are being employed in parliament as well. They are not paid any Provident Fund or ESIC money," he claimed.
Jaleel ended his speech by pointing out the Adani row and the Prime Minister's silence over it despite opposition including Rahul Gandhi's insistence on his clarification or a statement on the issue. "I will take Adani's name because even I have invested in LIC. I am also a customer of SBI. The Prime Minister speaks about everyone. '140 crore people are behind me', he told us but not once he uttered Adani's name. Beware! as you chase that one person (Adani), you will lose 140 crore people," he said.
