Senior TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien on Monday hit out at the Centre after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget in Lok Sabha.

Calling it a “100 percent visionless” Budget, he alleged that the government was trying to sell out all the public assets, be it the airports, the Railways or the PSUs.

“India’s first paperless budget is also a 100% visionless budget. (The) theme of the fake budget is Sell India!” he wrote in a three-part post on his official Twitter handle.

“Railways: sold, Airports: sold, Ports: sold, Insurance: sold PSUs: 23 sold,” said the TMC MP.

He also pointed out that the common people and farmers were ignored in the Budget. The annual exercise only aimed to help the rich get richer and drive the poor towards further poverty while there was nothing for the middle class, he charged.

He listed the achievements of the West Bengal government in terms of building roads, adding that the state government has already done more than what the Centre was planning to do.

He said that until 2011, only 39,705 km rural roads were built, while in the last decade (2011 to 2020), a total of 88,841 km rural roads were built by the state government, an achievement he claimed no other state in the country could boast of.

O’Brien said that the Centre in its 2021-22 Budget has promised to build 625km roads in West Bengal, whereas the state government had built 5,111 km new roads as recently as in 2018 and 1,165 km in 2019.

“Budget'21 promise – 625km roads in WB. WB government (2018) – New roads of 5111 km, #1 in India. Plus 1165 km (2019),” tweeted O'Brien.

The senior TMC leader also alleged that the government was resorting to more cess, calling it a “loot” on federalism. He further said that the states were being robbed of revenue.

Meanwhile, several government functionaries have hailed the Union Budget. Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has called the budget “practical, rational and progressive”.