‘Visionless, directionless, anti-poor..’: Mamata Banerjee scorns Union Budget 2026-27

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday termed the Union Budget 2026-27 as “visionless, directionless and full of lies” with no funds allocated to the state.

Speaking to media persons outside Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Banerjee said the Centre is destroying the country’s economy with this budget.

“This financial Budget of 2026-27, placed by the Central government, is totally directionless, visionless, missionless, and actionless. The economy is derailed. It is anti-women, anti-poor, anti-farmers, anti-youth, anti-commoners, anti-SC, anti-ST, anti-OBC… There has been no allocation for the education sector…. education subsidy declined, social security subsidy declined, fertiliser subsidy declined. It is totally a garbage of lies,” she maintained.

Claiming that no funds have been allocated to West Bengal, Banerjee said: “They have not given a single paisa to Bengal. Only one tax is there, which is GST. They are taking away our money and saying big things that they are giving us money. It is our money…. So, they don’t have any moral authority to run the government and finish the country like this.”

“They want to destroy the economic structure of the country, the Constitutional structure of this country, the independent agencies…. They want to destroy the economic structure of the country, the constitutional structure of this country, the independent agencies, including the infrastructural facilities, the economy, the social sector, the economic sector, and the federal sector. All is vanished. They only use some jugglery of words…. You have to give the advantage to the common people. They need to enjoy the facilities.”

Banerjee also alleged that the Centre lied about economic corridors during the budget. “What they said about three corridors is absolutely garbage of lies. Blatant lies. It is already in process, and we have started working there. In the Jangalmahal Jangal Sundari project in Purulia, for this economic corridor, Rs 72,000 crore is going to be invested,” she said.

On Sunday afternoon, Banerjee left for the national capital, with multiple programmes scheduled during her trip, primarily focusing on protests against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state. She will be meeting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar at the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in New Delhi on Monday. Apart from that, she is also likely to interact with the top leaders of the opposition parties with an aim to create consensus against the revision exercise.

Meanwhile, a detailed reaction to the Union Budget will be provided by Banerjee’s Principal Chief Adviser and former state Finance Minister Amit Mitra later.

IANS