Opp chants slogans in NA, stages walkout during budget speech.

ISLAMABAD: As Industries Minister Hammad Azhar presented the budget for the new fiscal year, opposition benches in the National Assembly shouted slogans and carried placards bearing messages against Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was also in attendance.

Loud slogans against the prime minister and table-thumping by the opposition benches could be heard as Azhar highlighted the PTI-led government's efforts to streamline the economy. The speaker of Lower House repeatedly urged members to remain silent and refrain from waving banners, but members of the opposition parties ignored his instructions. Later, the opposition members walked out of the House.

Separately, while the government touted budget 2020-21 as 'relief budget', senior opposition leaders from the PPP, PML-N and the JUI-F described it as a 'people's enemy' budget.

Reacting to the budget, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif predicted that inflation and unemployment would surge as a result of it. "The government first tried to hide behind the PML-N for its failures and now it is doing the same with the coronavirus," he said, adding that the country had witnessed historical setbacks in terms of inflation, unemployment, and business during the incumbent government's tenure. "This isn't a budget, but a path to destruction," said Shehbaz, adding, "Unfortunately, the nation is paying for this government's incompetence."

The PML-N president said that his party had taken up the policy of 'less inflation and more development'. The budget announcements proved that the government is not ready to take the 'path of reform and wisdom', he noted. "The current deficit of Rs1.7 billion in tax revenue is the performance of the present government," he said. "For the first time in 68 years, the country's GDP has plunged to negative. Is this the incumbent government's performance?" he asked.

Shehbaz lamented that fiscal deficit had never climbed to double digit yet this government had managed to do this as well. "The...