February 11, 2026
Kalyan Banerjee’s speech on the Union Budget for 2026-27
Sir, the Union Budget of 2026- 2027 is full of sound and fury. It is faceless, directionless, visionless, missionless and actionless. The Budget is anti-poor, anti-youth, anti-women and anti-farmer. The Budget is anti-Scheduled Caste, anti-Scheduled Tribe and OBC. The economy is derailed. Sir, West Bengal has been deprived of its due fiscal allocation for major centrally-sponsored schemes. Funds allocation of MGNREGA was completely stopped while allocation for food subsidy, National Health Mission and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan was stopped on irrational grounds. This has created extreme hardships for the people of Bengal. Bengalis are being deprived each and every moment in West Bengal. Normal developmental momentum gets impacted, especially for our State, which is periodically hit by heavy rain, flash floods and cyclones. When funds under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was stopped from the Government of India, this State Government took up the challenge and started its own Banglar Bari. We have now covered more than 32 lakh households under this scheme. As on today, total fund due from the Government of India is Rs. 1,97,000 crore. Out of this, major shortfalls are in MGNREGA -– Rs. 43,014 crore, Samagra Shiksha Abhijan — Rs. 19,045 crore, and National Health Mission which — Rs. 4,565 crore. In the Union Budget 2025-26, the Jal Jeevan Mission received a significantly enhanced allocation of Rs. 67,000 crore as per the budget document. In reality, West Bengal has not received a single rupee under the Jal Jeevan Mission during 2025-26 so far. Our Chief Minister had repeatedly brought this to the notice of the hon. Prime Minister and wrote to him several letters drawing his personal attention to the shortfall in devolution of funds under several Centrally sponsored schemes. However, there was no response and the partial and irrational behaviour of the Government of India continued. Our hon. Chief Minister also wrote to the hon. Prime Minister several letters regarding the flood problem in West Bengal and the urgent need to adopt a comprehensive approach and funding support. However, we are left alone in this serious battle. So many letters have been written. This is a bunch of letters I am having. But unfortunately, the hon. Prime Minister did not feel to give any answer to a single letter and did not allocate a single rupee. Sir, the hon. Finance Minister in her speech did not mention Bengal even once. The omission is not a mistake. It is a message of ignoring Bengal. Of course, she only knows that they are again going to lose Bengal with a big number of seats. They will not reach even 30 seats. They know that. Therefore, Bengal has been ignored, Bengalis have been ignored. Sir, there was a mention of Dankuni Freight Corridor in the Budget. When our hon. Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee ji, was Railway Minister, she envisioned this corridor years ago. She herself presented the Railway Budget in 2009. Today, it is repeated again as if repetition is an achievement. The promise has been pending for 15 years and is not a new announcement in the Union Budget so far as Dankuni Corridor Complex is concerned. While the Budget has mentioned three economic corridors, the West Bengal Government has already announced six of them. One of them will connect Dankuni, Bardhaman, Bankura, Durgapur and Purulia. The other will connect Kalyani, Bardhaman, Birbhum, Malda, Siliguri and Cooch Behar. The State Government has already started working on these projects. We started it and they are announcing it now. This is the fun of the things. Sir, Bengal has become the hub of various industries, including cement, coal and leather. Even Flipkart and Amazon are also doing business in and around Dankuni within my constituency, Kalyani and other places. The hon. Finance Minister mentioned ‘Kartavya’ to fulfil the aspirations of the people by making them strong partners in India’s prosperity. But you intend to fulfil the aspirations of selective people while the common people suffer. Ten crore people of Bengal are being branded as Bangladeshi by the Prime Minister and the hon. Home Minister. Due to the unplanned SIR, 127 deaths have happened. There are 1.36 crore cases of logical discrepancies that have been recorded and 32 lakhs unmapped cases are there in West Bengal. This takes the total number to 1.65 crore. Now, since we have moved the hon. Supreme Court, every day the Supreme Court is interfering with the matter of SIR and giving directions, one after another, so that not a single eligible voter is deleted from the final voter list. This is the stand that has been taken by our hon. Chief Minister. This is the stand that has been taken by our General Secretary, Abhishek Banerjee. This is the stand of crores and crores of Trinamool Congress workers in the State of West Bengal. The problem with the Budget is not only what it allocates or not. The bigger problem is the governance culture. It represents that the announcements are plentiful but implementation is scarce. For West Bengal, in particular, the budget gaps are political fodder. Virtually, there is no direct benefit to the State and there is a notable exclusion. For example, Bengal’s mineral reserves are left out of development plans. This has amplified the Opposition’s charge of the Centre’s bias and neglect toward non-BJP States, reinforcing a narrative of an anti-federal budget. No special financial package or major new projects for West Bengal were announced. Flagship women schemes like ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, etc., were largely steady and there was no special package for women’s safety or health, aside from continued funding of existing programmes. Our Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee ji has condemned the Budget by referring to it as ‘anti-women’, arguing that women received nothing substantially new. It is noted that the Budget lacked new measures for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, beyond scholarships, and is called ‘against the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes’. Sir, the most striking difference in previous year’s Budget and this year’s Budget is the capital expenditure in defence sector, which funds modernisation, acquisition, and domestic manufacturing. But in terms of budget expenditure, the percentage is reduced to 14.67 this year against 16.86 in 2020-21. The allocation for Department of Space is 0.26 per cent in 2026-27 against 0.48 per cent in 2020- 21. Sir, everybody is concerned regarding the border areas. When this country is facing problems on the borders – whether it is the China border, the Pakistan border, or the Bangladesh border – at that point of time, you are allocating funds by reducing the Budget. Sir, it is not that the writer writes a book and that is all. The writer gives it for publication. … When the publication comes into the public domain, it is for the reader to pass comments. … What is this?) Kindly allow us to speak. What is this? Please allow us to speak. Sir, once it has come into the public domain, the public will criticise it. Sir, please allow me to speak. The time allocated to my party is not yet finished. Kindly allow me to speak. It is for the reader to pass their comments, not for anybody else to decide. The question is whether that manuscript has come into the public domain or not. The question is not whether it has been published or not. The question is whether the contents of that manuscript have been challenged by the hon. Defence Minister or not. That is the question. The question is not whether it was published or not. सर, आप मझुेबाहर डानिंग बिात ु ेहंऔर यहां टाइम िहं दते ेहं, ऐसा क्यं है? सर, डानिंग को बोििेके निए टाइम तो देदीनिए।सर, दश को चार आदमी क े ं ट्रोि कर रहेहं। दो आदमी दश की प्रोपटी े बेच रहेहंऔर दो आदमी उसको खरीद िेतेहं। येचारं आदमी गिरात स ु ेआतेहं। Sir, this Union Budget has deprived the State of Bengal. The people of Bengal, in the ensuing elections, will give an appropriate answer, and we will find that the BJP is non-existent in the State of Bengal.
