Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin accused the Union Government of being deceitful in slashing funds for ongoing projects, apart from not announcing any projects for Tamil Nadu, and even paralyzing the school education department by withholding funds for SSA that was being implemented for over 20 years.Without an iota of concern for the education of children and the livelihood of teachers in the State, the BJP government was adamant in not releasing the funds since the State had not agreed to implement the New Education Policy, Stalin said in his video message to the people after boycotting the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday.All that the BJP government wanted was to impose their ideology and Hindi on the State, Stalin said and pointed to the Budget speech of the Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharama, in which she had announced that the stamp duty levied by the States would be reduced without consulting the States.After depriving the States of taxation powers by introducing the GST system and without disbursing the GST compensation of Rs 20,000 to Tamil Nadu they had altered the tax levying system of the States, he said and asked ‘who gave them the authority?’The middle-class was suffering without any concession in income tax for the last ten years and the Union Government was patting their own back for announcing a meagre tax benefit of up to Rs 17,500 per year to individual taxpayers under the NTR (New Tax Regime) which the majority could not avail of, he said.It was not a case of the Budget taking revenge on Tamil Nadu but the Budget taking revenge on the entire nation, he said, adding that it was BJP’s ‘save the government budget’ to help the party remain in power.Warning the BJP, he said, as the voice of the people of Tamil Nadu, and all the Indian people, that the ruling party was committing mistake after mistake and would suffer more and more electoral defeats. It was not both Houses of the Parliament that had been outraged, the hearts of the Indian people were also raging, for which the BJP must answer.He had been compelled to speak before the people without attending the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by the Prime Minister to seek justice for the discriminatory attitude shown towards Tamil Nadu in the Union Budget 2024, he said.The benefits of the progressive and visionary schemes of the Dravidian Model Government in Tamil Nadu, implemented over the past three years, had directly reached every family, nay every citizen, and that was why the DMK was achieving continuous success, he said.When the State government was driven by the motto “New schemes every day to fill people’s hearts with joy,” the Union Government continued to engage in actions that were contrary to such progressive thoughts, he said.While the State government and all Union Governments before Narendra Modi worked not only for the people who voted for them but also those who did not, the Narendra Modi government was vengeful against the States that had opposed them in the Lok Sabha elections, he said.Instead of preparing a budget for the welfare of all Indians, the Union Finance Minister had prepared the budget to take revenge against those who voted for the INDIA bloc, which went against the oath of office she took swearing allegiance to the Constitution, he said.Disregarding the State continuously, the Union BJP government announced only the AIIMS at Madurai, which too had not taken off for a decade, and neglected the demand for a Rs 37,000 disaster relief fund, allocation of funds for Chennai Metro Rail second phase and approval for Metro Rail in other cities like Coimbatore and Madurai while it had allowed for it in many smaller cities.
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