'Federalism weakened': On Budget 2024, Chidambaram says flaw in NDA’s approach to economy, governance is...

After the Union government presented its Budget 2024-25, former Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram said, "Federalism has been considerably weakened by the central government taking over — rather usurping — the executive and legislative powers of state governments."

Congress leaders, including P Chidambaram and Gaurav Gogoi, held a press conference on Thursday evening to express their views on the Budget 2024 presented by .

P Chidambaram said Sitharaman did speak about 'minimum government' and 'maximum governance', but in reality, the 'minimum government' has undermined federalism.

He said, "Staffed state governments with funds and virtually reduced the third tier of governance, panchayats and municipalities, to cyphers. The overwhelming majority of people are dependent on the third tier of government for their services but that tier has been virtually deprived of human and financial resources."

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Chidambaram said, "The the economy and governance is that it is biased in favour of the rich. It is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich." NDA is an acronym by National Democratic Alliance, which is led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said this government “has practically forgotten the bottom 50 percent of the people".

Chidambaram said the government is "either ignorant or callous to the fact that the top 10 percent owns 60 percent of the nation’s wealth and earns 57 percent of the national income".

"...that in the last 10 years," the Congress leader said. "This outcome is because of the lower growth rate during the 10 year period (2014-2024) as against the UPA period (2004–2014)," he added.

He claimed, “In the last year of the UPA, 2013-14, we left a and an average