Opposition slams Mahayuti govt for not fulfilling election promises in budget | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: The opposition on Tuesday attacked the ruling Mahayuti for reneging on its assurances given before the assembly polls, among these the promise to increase the monthly Ladki Bahin payout from ₹1,500 to ₹2,100. It also slammed the alliance for scrapping ongoing schemes like Anandacha Shidha launched by the previous Eknath Shinde government.

On the first day of the debate on the Maharashtra budget, Shiv Sena (UBT) group leader Bhaskar Jadhav pointed out that the government had reduced the allocation for its flagship Ladki Bahin scheme. “The fund has dwindled to ₹36,000 crore this year from ₹46,000 crore last year, and this clearly means that the number of beneficiaries will be drastically reduced,” he said. “We have been hearing that about 0.9 million beneficiaries’ names have been deleted, and the number could go up to 5 million.”

The Mahayuti government also got some brickbats from its own allies. NCP MLA and former minister Chhagan Bhujbal said it had not made provisions for various ongoing schemes owing to the spend on Ladki Bahin and other doles. He pointed out that the Shiv Bhojan Thali subsidy and the fee subsidy under the Right To Education Act had still not been paid.

Congress MLA Vijay Wadettiwar said that the Fadnavis government had scrapped all the old schemes announced earlier. “Apart from backing out on the promised increased payout for Ladki Bahin, the government has failed to make an allocation for schemes announced in last year’s budget such as the 1,000 pink auto rickshaws that were to be distributed to women drivers, the Annapurna scheme to give three free gas cylinders to underprivileged families and the Re 1 crop insurance for farmers,” he said. “All these schemes launched by the previous government are not mentioned in the budget documents.”

NCP (SP) state chief Jayant Patil said that the government should come clean on the outlay done for various schemes. “There is no information in the budget for ongoing schemes,” he said. “I was told that the government diverted the funds meant for social justice (scheduled caste allocation) to the Ladki Bahin scheme. Also, the state’s growth has fallen to such an extent that even Gujarat is ahead in per capita income.” Patil also questioned how the government was constantly talking about making Maharashtra a $1-trillion economy in five years when this would require a growth rate of over 14% against the existing growth rate of 7.3%.