Dr. Syed Zafar Islam

Another BJP spokesperson, he is a former Managing Director, Deutsche Bank who is tasked by the BJP leadership to give his continuous inputs to the budget that are eventually presented to Sitharaman. A former investment banker, he is currently a Director of the national carrier Air India. So how does it work? “There is no structured mechanism,” replies Islam, before adding the “senior leadership” asked him to share his “vision for the budget” within the party.

On being asked to elaborate what his suggestions were, Islam was candid. “We have very limited room to manoeuvre, given the committed expenditure in India. But whatever resources are left in the budget that can be spent somewhere, the idea is to use it equally for the rural sector, poor and the middle class.”

So has he suggested incentives for the corporate sector or more subsidy for the poor? Islam would not answer but did tell IANS that “I hope this budget will see more spending on the rural sector”. This reconfirms an earlier IANS report that suggested the BJP demanded a ‘gaon, gareeb, kisan’ (village, poor, farmer) focus budget from Sitharaman.