Modi govt not populist even in election year: Finance Minister Piyush Goyal

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has refuted charges that it is resorting to populist measures by going for supplementary demand for grants that will hit the exchequer by Rs 59.5 billion.

Replying to a debate, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said in the Lok Sabha the supplementary showed “this (demand for grants) is the lowest ever in the past 15 years. It is just 0.2 per cent of the total Budget, compared to 14 per cent in 2008-09 (the election year in the UPA’s tenure).” The House later passed the first batch of supplementary demand for FY19.

He said it was rather the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government which has widened the Centre’s fiscal deficit by a huge margin, compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) in election years.

“The UPA handed down the fiscal deficit at 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to us. We brought it down to an estimated 3.3 per cent in the current financial year,” Goyal said.