Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani on Friday described the 2003-2004 budget as 'inspiring, exhilarating and realistic.'

He said the Budget, presented by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in Parliament, has greatly enhanced the credibility of the National Democratic Alliance government.

In his first official reaction on the budget, Advani said he had anticipated similar comments by the opposition as in the case of the Railway Budget, which they described as an 'election budget.'

Advani said the Budget is realistic without being populist in any way and showed the government's clear concern for mobilisation of resources. The budget has created confidence in the country about the 'economic potential that the country possesses' and also takes into consideration the needs of the agriculture sector and the small scale, which had not been done before.

The opposition came down strongly describing it as an 'election budget, anti-farmer and anti-poor'.

Samajwadi party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, while describing it as Ghoshna budget which was Kisan virodhi, said, "Stress has been taken to demonstrate that it is not harsh budget, but the fact is that they have imposed too many harsh measures indirectly."

His party colleague Amar Singh described it as a 'pro-rich and a cosmetic budget presented with an eye on elections'. He said it had targeted less of the business and more of the votes while nothing had been done for the working class.

Lok Janshakti's Ram Vilas Paswan also described it as an election budget, adding that he found nothing special in it. Recalling the prime minister's announcement that employment would be provided to one crore people, Paswan wanted to know where is the room in this budget for generating such employment. He also said the working class will suffer the most from this budget.

BJP's Rajnath Singh described it as a budget for all sections of the society and claimed that it had 'all the inputs of his committee' that was formed to make suggestions to the government on the recommendations made by the Kelkar committee.

"Concern has been shown for all section of the people specially the one below the poverty line, but through a prism that would make India prosperous," Singh said.

Shivraj Patil of the Congress said, "We think that this is an election budget, but what has been provided is not going to help in the long terms. It speaks of relief to certain section of the industry, which is good. But they have given tax relief in some areas, which makes us feel it is a budget geared more towards the election in 2004. It is a sort of beat and track budget in which nothing in specific terms has been said to even help the sugar industry."

Former prime minister Deve Gowda said that the farmers have been 'totally destroyed' as there is nothing for them in this budget.

UNI