The “Indian Express” ran an old interview with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in which she discussed the limitations of providing relief to the middle class through tax changes. However, the Indian Express misrepresented Sitharaman’s old interview with Times Now as a recent statement to spread propaganda against the Finance Minister ahead of the Union Budget 2025-26.
On 31 December 2024, The Indian Express published a story titled “FM cites limitations over expectations of tax break,” claiming that Finance Minister Sitharaman had said, “she wishes to ‘do more’ for the middle class, but highlighted that there are ‘limitations’ in providing relief through tax tweaks.” The article went on to explain that this statement was made ahead of the 2025-26 Union Budget, with expectations for significant tax concessions due to the slowdown in consumption demand.
The report also included a quote from Sitharaman’s interview with Times Now, where she had said, “I respect the issue of giving relief to the middle class. I wish to do more, but there are limitations in taxation. To make a difference for salaried people, the standard deduction was increased from ₹50,000 to ₹75,000 (in the last Budget).”
While Sitharaman indeed made this statement, it was in a July 2024 interview, not during any recent interaction. The Indian Express article was published on the 13th page of its newspaper. However, on 1 January 2025, the publication retracted its misleading story and issued a “correction” rather than an apology. This correction, though, was buried in the smallest corner of the second page of the newspaper, seemingly to avoid full accountability.
The correction read, “The report FM cites limitations over expectations of tax break, which appeared on 31 December 2024, was based on a TV interview of the Finance Minister conducted in July 2024. The error is regretted.”
(With inputs from OpIndia)
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