Shri Gaurav Gogoi said that there was a lot of expectation with the recent budget after the 2019 mandate of Prime Minister Modi. The people expected huge benefit but neither people got any benefit in the first five years of Prime Minister nor, as we see from early trends, are likely to get any additional benefit.

The budget was the most disappointing; it has no impact on the highest unemployment in the last four decades, on the lowest GDP in the last few years and right now we feel the government is so incompetent and financially so bankrupt that even when the crude prices in the international market have decreased to US$ 53 per Barrel – the decrease by 24%, they are unable to pass on this benefit to the ordinary Indian consumers, they have only reduced by One Rupee. So, petrol is right now at Rs. 72.98 per lt. and the diesel is at Rs. 66.04 per lt.

When you go back in time and remember 2009 prices, when in the international market crude price was somewhere on US$ 58, then the retail price of petrol was around Rs. 40 and diesel was much less. So, it just shows that what Rahul Gandhi Ji has been saying all this while that this government neither has the will nor the capacity to improve the state of Indian economy and the Indian consumers continue to suffer from this incompetence despite the fact that there is 14% food inflation and 7.5% overall inflation.

This was the time to give consumers and Indian people some relief but we have seen the only relief the government has given is to the corporates by cutting down their corporate tax to 22% and 15% but no such relief, we are seeing, is being given, is being passed on to ordinary Indian household. Wednesday, 5th February, 2020