Budget 2019: 21% hike in allocation for North East possible bid to douse ire over Citizenship Bill

The NDA government’s last Interim Budget that was announced by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday is being lauded for being ‘pro-people’. Making a big populist push in its final budget before the Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi government on Friday exempted people with an earning of up to Rs 5 lakh from payment of income tax, announced an annual cash dole-out of Rs 6,000 to small farmers and provided a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to workers in the unorganised sector.

Converting what was supposed to be an Interim Budget or a vote-on-account into an almost full-fledged Budget announcement in the Lok Sabha, Goyal proposed an array of incentives for both middle-class and farmers, whose disenchantment was said to have cost the BJP dearly in recent assembly elections.

As was widely anticipated, Goyal announced an income support scheme for 12 crore small and marginal farmers by providing Rs 6,000 in their bank accounts in three equal installments in a year, which will cost Rs 75,000 crore a year to the government.

Benefits for the North East in Interim Budget

The Centre, which is on rocky ground in the North East due to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, also took a significant step for the “benefits” of the people in the region. The government’s development initiatives in the Northeastern states got a major budgetary push as the government proposed to increase the allocation to the region by 21 percent to Rs 58,166 crore in the financial year 2019-20.

Highlighting the efforts for development in the region, Goyal said Arunachal Pradesh’s Itanagar had been equipped with an airport recently, and Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram had been put on the Railways’ map for the first time.

Goyal also said that projects stuck for decades like the Bogibeel rail-cum-road bridge in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh had been completed by the Modi government. With the commissioning of the Pakyong airport in Sikkim, the number of operational airports in the country crossed 100, he said.

North East allies against Centre’s Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

However, Goyal’s announcements of the Centre’s achievements in the North East come on the heels of dissatisfaction expressed by all the BJP’s allies in the region over the proposed citizenship legislation. Less than a week ago, on 29 January, ten regional parties, along with the saffron party’s Bihar ally Janata Dal (United), unanimously decided to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

After a meeting with representatives, which was led by Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma and co-hosted by the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) , the parties raised their opposition to the bill “in one voice”. The parties are the members of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

“This meeting is the outcome of a natural process as we felt we must come together and oppose the bill in one voice,” Sangma said. Sangma said it was decided at the meeting that representatives will approach President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and request them to withdraw the bill.

Protests against the bill, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to ’non-Muslim’ nationals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India, have rocked the region.

The AGP, which recently snapped ties with the BJP in Assam over the bill, said that the bill was “being imposed on them”. AGP resident and former state agriculture minister Atul Bora, who recently resigned from the Sarbananda Sonowal-led Assam cabinet, was quoted by News18 as having said that “every political party in the region has realised the way the ruling party is trying to impose the bill” upon them.

“They do not have the consent of the people of the region. This meeting will surely give a major momentum to the ongoing movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the region,” Bora had said. “Mainstream parties have always failed to look after the concerns of the North East,” JD(U) general secretary KC Tyagi said.

The 10 parties from the North East that participated in the meeting are the Mizo National Front (MNF), United Democratic Party (UDP), AGP, Naga Peoples’ Front (NPF), National Peoples’ Party (NPP), National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), Hill State Peoples Democratic Party (HSPDP), Peoples Democratic Front (PDF), Indigenous People Front of Tripura (IPFT) and the Khnam.

Appeasement bid?

In the backdrop of this growing and vocal discontent, Modi government’s policy for the North East in the much-debated Interim Budget can be seen as an appeasement bid even as it tries to “deliver on the promise” to the “persecuted people”.

The BJP is hoping to win at least 20 out of the 25 seats Lok Sabha which make up the eight states of the North East. The ruling party’s continued push for the citizenship bill has shaken its chances of winning the seats. However, efforts for the passage of the bill have continued.

The BJP is currently the biggest party in the region, heading the governments in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura. It is also part of coalitions in Meghalaya and Nagaland. The party’s boost for the region by the increased allocation in the Budget could work as a pacifier for its allies and reiterate its stand as beneficial for the North East.

Sangma, reacting to the Budget, said that policies for farmers would be “most beneficial” to those in the North East. “One of the most striking proposals of this budget is the allocation of Rs 6000 for the farmers who hold below 2 hectares of land area. Broadly, this should be the most beneficial to the whole of the north-eastern region’s farmers,” he was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying .

The report also quoted Lalruatkima, Mizo National Front (MNF) leader as saying, “We appreciate the NDA government for this increase in funds. We are a backward region. Rural connectivity, roads, health, education, etc have been suffering because of neglect. This move may lead to further improvement.” The MNF, which returned to power in Mizoram in December, is an ally of the BJP at the Centre.

With inputs from agencies