AGARTALA, June 21 (TIWN):Opposition Congress Leader Gopal Roy in reaction of BJP Govt’s first budget said, the budget placed by BJP Govt was more or less same as the CPI-M Govt. Talking to TIWN following the budget session, Gopal Roy said, “Neither the budget kept space for unemployed youths, nor it talked about farmers loan waiver. This budget was nothing but a hired budget from CPI-M. Whatever the CPI-M was giving, BJP has also decided to copy them and that’s all has been the budget this year about. In last 15 years also, CPI-M had been placing a budget which was just for name-sake without any visionary plan and programme”.The Congress leader also slammed the BJP Govt for hiking petrol , diesel and cook gas related taxes. In a separate interview, Congress President Birjit Sinha said, “A primary look into the budget says 7th Pay Commission will be not so 'honey' as BJP is claiming. All Indian states' employees under BJP Govt has not been felicitated with 7th Pay Commission. So, I have huge doubt whether BJP can implement 7th Pay Commission for its employees or not”.

Talking to TIWN over phone Birjit Sinha said, Congress will give a full-reaction on the budget on tomorrow via a press conference but said, “It was quite shocking that taxes on fuel price and cooking gas has been hiked majorly.

People in Tripura are poor and with more taxes it will damage the economy further as fuel-hike means all items' prices hike. It’s almost like cutting people’s head”, the Congress added.

Noteworthy,  Tripura Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma on Tuesday presented a Rs 16,387.21 crore tax-free budget for financial year 2018-19.

Tabling the budget on the first day of the assembly session, Dev Varma, who holds the Finance portfolio, said that there is no deficit in the budget. He, however, proposed increase of sales tax on petrol by two per cent and on diesel and piped natural gas by one per cent each. "With the increase of sales tax and imposition of cess, the state government is expecting to earn Rs 40.84 crore per year. The earning from the proposed new cess would be utilised for road development in the state," he said.

Whereas Tripura CM Biplab Deb said, ‘It’s historical budget’, Gopal Roy said, “BJP just has mimicked CPI-M’s 15 years old traditional budget”.