Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appears to have made a valiant attempt to arm the ruling BJP with an electoral script for rural India. With rural Gujarat in December delivering a rude jolt to the BJP, half of Jaitley’s Union Budget speech remained focussed on farmers, rural people and the poor, as he reeled out promises to usher in better days for the hoi polloi. Whereas, describing budget as “high on promises and low on specifics’’, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said he was not surprised that it was more a political exercise, given that it’s the last full budgeting exercise before the 2019 general election.
Without getting into any lengthy analysis of the budgetary provisions — which his party, the Congress, left to former finance minister P Chidambaram to do — Singh said he was not sure if farm distress – “the real problem area today” – was adequately addressed.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appears to have made a valiant attempt to arm the ruling BJP with an electoral script for rural India. With rural Gujarat in December delivering a rude jolt to the BJP, half of Jaitley’s Union Budget speech remained focussed on farmers, rural people and the poor, as he reeled out promises to usher in better days for the hoi polloi. Whereas, describing budget as “high on promises and low on specifics’’, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said he was not surprised that it was more a political exercise, given that it’s the last full budgeting exercise before the 2019 general election.
Without getting into any lengthy analysis of the budgetary provisions — which his party, the Congress, left to former finance minister P Chidambaram to do — Singh said he was not sure if farm distress – “the real problem area today” – was adequately addressed.