THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Lashing out at the union budget, state Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac said the union budget was a "mere rhetoric" to cover up the recession in the country and alleged that it had "completely ignored" the demands of the southern state. There was no increase in allocation of the central funds to states as compared to last year, he told reporters here.

"The union budget is a war cry against the state. The budget allocation for Kerala is the lowest in the history," he said.

Slamming the budget, KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran alleged that it totally ignored the poor and ordinary people while protecting the interests of corporates. Stating that the most frequently used term in the budget was the PPP model, which refers to privatisation, he said even LIC, considered as the backbone of the country, was being privatised.

The Union Budget had no plans to reverse the 'pathetic' economic condition in the country, indicated by the Economic Survey, the former Union minister said. The stock market took a plunge soon after the presentation of the budget, raising concerns about its effectiveness, the Congress veteran added.

Earlier, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan too had slammed the budget, saying that it would neither help strengthen the economy nor ensure social security or development, but only further increase inflation and unemployment in the country.