'Laboured and tortuous': Chidambaram on Sitharaman's explanation

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave a tortuous explanation to his question on capital expenditure asserting that the numbers conclusively proved that there was a cut in capex during 202425Chidambaram said this in a statement late on Tuesday evening while responding to the answers given by Sitharaman in the Rajya SabhaThe former finance minister said Sitharaman has given a laboured and tortuous explanation to a simple question on what was the budget estimate for capital expenditure in the 202425 budget and what is the estimate at the end of yearThere is a reduction cut and I asked in the Rajya Sabha what are the reasons for the cut FM could have listed the reasons and it is for the people to decide whether the reasons are acceptable or notInstead she has questioned the very comparison of BE and RE I am astonished that the Honble FM should say that comparison of BE and RE is flawed If BE and RE are not comparable why list the two numbers sidebyside on the same page in the Budget documents Chidambaram askedHe also asked why does the finance minister list the Budget Estimate BE of fiscal deficit sidebyside with the Revised Estimate RE of the fiscal deficitIn order to show the world that the government has improved upon the original estimate of the fiscal deficit he saidThe same logic applies to all estimates As far as capital expenditure in 202425 is concerned the numbers conclusively prove that there was a reduction cut in 202425 Chidambaram said in the statementEarlier Sitharaman said the capital expenditure has not been reduced but has gone up to Rs 1121 lakh crore for the 202526 fiscal and claims of cuts are misleading and based on flawed comparisonsReplying during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha Sitharaman said the capital expenditure was Rs 1111 lakh crore in 202425Actually in the budget this year it has gone up to Rs 1121 lakh crore So the capital expenditure has not been cut at all she saidSo cutting down the capital expenditure is not the case with us she added Sitharaman was responding to a question by ChidambaramLater responding to a social media post of Chidambaram Sitharaman said his claims of a cut in capital expenditure are misleading and based on flawed comparisonsChidambarams selective arithmetic and flawed comparisons between BE and RE of the same year may serve political rhetoric but do little for informed public discourse she said in a post on XThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever