Jaitley returns a favour: Budget ignores Cong states, Amethi, Rae Bareli

Whether it was a coach factory at Chhapra when Lalu Prasad was Railway minister or at Rae Bareli when Pawan Kumar Bansal read out his rail budget speech, the gravy train has always made its way to the home constituencies of the powerful politicians of the time. It’s little wonder then that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden budget speech left out all mention of Amethi and Rae Bareli, focusing instead on projects for: Amritsar, a constituency he lost; Varanasi, arguably set to be the cynosure of all government spending; and even Lucknow, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s constituency.

Varanasi got a trade facilitation centre and a crafts museum, plus a Rs 50-crore outlay for the welfare of the town’s weavers. That’s not counting the massive funds that will flow through Varanasi for the Ganga rejuvenation project.

As a report in the Deccan Herald points out, the ghats in Varanasi are set to get a makeover too, with another Rs 100 crore separately allocated for ghats redevelopment across the country.

Gujarat, prime minister Narendra Modi’s home state, gets its share of largesse, mainly because of the ambitious Statue of Unity project to construct a towering statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The report points out that during the UPA regime, such bounty was bestowed upon Amethi and Rae Bareli, Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s constituencies respectively.

“About 21 big-ticket projects had been given to these constituencies in Uttar Pradesh,” the report states. “A wheel and coach manufacturing unit, an aviation university, National Institute of Fashion and Technology, a hotel management institute, a paper mill, food processing units and a CRPF group centre were among the projects Raebareli and Amethi had been given.”

Apart from Gujarat and Varanasi, the finance minister also did not disappoint Home Minister Rajnath Singh, whose home turf of Lucknow got a Rs 100-crore allocation for a metro rail project. Lucknow will also be among the cities included in a textile mega-cluster in Uttar Pradesh.

Jaitley-Rajnath-Gadkari have now been firmly established as the power-troika in the new political dispensation. That’s why nobody was surprised that Vidisha, Sushma Swaraj’s constituency did not fnd mention in the budget speech. On the other hand, Vidarbha, the region represented by Nitin Gadkari, the party’s last major strongman in Maharashtra with a pan-India image, was given his due – an AIIMS for a region reeling from acute agrarian crisis and farmer suicides.

The rest of Maharashtra had little cause to celebrate. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan indicated that Congress-ruled states had been ignored when he said the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission plan for cities seems to have been ignored. Maharashtra is, after all, India’s fastest urbanising state.

Maharashtra Congress chief Manikrao Thakre was quoted as saying Mumbai had been ignored for political reasons. During the entire election campaign, the BJP had made every attempt to undermine the progress of Maharashtra, he said. “We knew it will not do justice to Maharashtra, which is established from the budgetary provisions,” he was quoted as saying.

Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana, which like Maharashtra also goes to polls later this year, echoed Thakre’s words. Congress-ruled states had been ignored, Hooda said , adding, “It looks people will have to wait endlessly for the ‘Achhe Din’ to come.” It certainly seems to be true if you happen to live in a Congress-ruled state or constituency.