Dhaka: BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday said the national budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year will not be helpful for public welfare as the government has formulated it to make its ‘political gain’ ahead of the 11th parliamentary polls.

‘The government is going to use the budget politically ahead of the election. That’s why we think this budget won’t do much for the welfare of people,’ he said.

The BNP leader came up with the remarks while distributing clothes among the destitute in front of BNP’s Nayapaltan central office. Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal arranged the programme, marking the 36th death anniversary of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman.

Mentioning that the country’s education and health sectors are not in good shape, Fakhrul said their party is waiting to see how much allocations are given for these sectors.

He also questioned the legality of the budget as what he said the government is not elected with people’s vote.

‘A budget has to place every year as per rules, but the government which is going to place the budget is not elected one. There’s also no accountability and liability of the regime which has been placing budgets.’

Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed the biggest-ever national budget for fiscal year 2017-18 of Tk 400266 crore saying he is placing this budget at a ‘historic juncture’ of economic development.

He started unveiling the national budget around 1:30pm for fiscal 2017-2018 in parliament around 1:30pm.

Earlier in the day, the Cabinet at its special meeting approved the proposed budget for the new fiscal year (2017-18).

Fakhrul said economic experts are raising doubt as to how much the mega-size budget will be used for public welfare. ‘The government is giving a big budget every year which experts are calling as highly ambitious one.’

He said the government could not implement its big-size budgets in the past. We’ve seen in the newspapers that 55-60 percent of the last budget could not be implemented. If this is the case, what is the justification of presenting the big-size budgets?’

The BNP leader said the government is cutting public pockets through VAT and spending much money for unproductive sectors.