Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday said the interim Budget presented by the National Democratic Alliance government was a “gimmick” and “far away from ground reality”.

“The Budget presented today in Parliament by the Central government, before the Lok Sabha elections, is more of an election gimmick than the ground reality.  Thus, it is very sad and worrying to deny the life of the people of the country suffering from immense poverty, unemployment and rising inflation etc,” Mayawati tweeted while reacting to the interim Budget presented by the Union government on Thursday.

“Along with this, if there was truth in the government claims and promises related to the country’s economy and development, then more than 80 crore people here would not have been forced to live a life in need of free ration distributed by the Central government,” former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh added while attacking the government over tall claims of flourishing economy.

Meanwhile, Akash Anand, whom Mayawati announced her successor, also attacked the interim budget. “The biggest economies of the world are scared of the recession and especially in India, the continuously decreasing demand remains the main reason for the recession. In such a situation, if some money had come into the hands of the people in this budget, then perhaps it would have increased the demand and benefited the economy,” Anand tweeted while reacting to the Budget.

Anand claimed that neither the farmers nor the small-scale industries nor the poor got anything in this indifferent budget. “The worst condition is that of the middle class…. Like every time, this time too, the finance minister got away with mere thanks and false hope. Anyway, this government has broken ties with the concerns of the middle class of the country years ago,” he added while criticising the Union government for ignoring the welfare of the common man in the interim Budget.