Terming the Union Budget a “national disappointment”, the BJP on Monday said it expected the UPA government to aggressively address the factors that had caused a downturn in the economy, but the Budget, ultimately proved to be “a case of lost opportunities”.

Party president Rajnath Singh described the exercise as a damp squib “with no programmes to boost investment and create employment opportunities in agriculture, exports, industry, power generation”. The BJP said the Finance Minister had done precious little “to boost infrastructure, especially housing”.

Deputy leader in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said the “government had lost credibility after it vowed to create a crore jobs per year, but what the people got instead was job losses to the tune of 5 crore in the period 2004-09”. M Venkaiah Naidu said that the finance minister had “run out of ideas”, and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said “he didn’t see any great message in the Budget and that it was timid, tepid and unimpressive”.