Islamabad: Pakistan Opposition parties castigated the maiden budget of the government "besieged", as it was presented in the Parliament amid unprecedented security by deploying armoured personnel carriers to silence their agitation against President Pervez Musharraf.

Never before a budget was presented in a Parliament besieged by battle gear troops and armoured personnel carriers (APCs) as was done on June 7, a statement by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by self-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said.

"The siege atmosphere in which the budget 2003-2004 was presented by the Finance Minister has exposed as never before the hollowness of the claims of the military junta's surrogates that democracy and Parliamentary supremacy had been restored in the country, it said.

Condemning the government for presenting the budget in an "unconstitutional manner" the PPP said "As for the claims of economic turnaround and talk of mega projects made in the budget document, the PPP dismisses these as no more than bogus claims and mega-lies."

"Whether it is the claim of bringing down inflation to 3 per cent, or increasing job opportunities, or increase in reserves, the facts have been concealed behind half truths and misstatements. The PPP rejects the budgetary figures as manipulation," it said.

Though Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz managed to present the budget amid noisy scenes in the National Assembly, he ran into trouble in the Senate later when he was grilled by the Opposition members specially regarding the figures about development.

PTI