February 12, 2026
Leader of Party in Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien’s speech on the Union Budget for 2026-27
Sir, for those outside Parliament, sitting in their homes, on their mobile phones or in offices, watching these speeches on television or their computers, let me try something to give them the experience of, maybe, the first interactive speech from Parliament. So, to do this, if you are watching at home, please go to www.indiabudget.gov.in; go there, and you download the Finance Minister’s speech. Please do that. Now many of you will not be able to do that because ‘five’ out of ‘ten’ people living in rural India do not have proper access to the Internet. And yet, with this minimum internet access, we are asking MNREGA workers to go online, to use Apps, to mark attendance, to bank accounts through e-KYC. Why? To get their wages! Leave that aside. For those of you who have downloaded the document, — as I said, we will be interactive — ‘Budget Speech, 2026,’ let us do a search on that document and put in some search words. Put in the word ‘middle class.’ Go ahead; put it in. For ‘middle class’, I want to make two points. ‘Four’ out of ‘five’ Indians are earning less than 171 rupees a day. Net household savings fell to the lowest in the last 50 years for the Indian middle class. Let us do the second word on the search document. Go and search ‘Unemployment.’ And I speak with confidence because my State Bengal is not the best. We are not the best; we are the fifth lowest when it comes to jobless rate. What does the national figure look like? ‘One’ out of ‘three’ youth are not in education, employment or training. ‘One’ out of ‘four’ positions in the Union Government are vacant and the PM Internship Scheme for every ‘hundred rupees’ that was kept, ‘five rupees’ was utilised. Sir, we are starting a youth scheme in Bengal; just started. From 24 to 40 years, you put 1500 rupees into your bank account. All set, Sir. In fact, in true federalism, you don’t have to copy States. I am not asking you to copy. We started Kanyashree in Bengal in 2013; you started Beti Bachao a few years later. Swasthya Sathi was started in Bengal; two years later, you started Ayushman Bharat. It is good, Sir. And you are not copying Bengal. No; you are only being inspired by Bengal, which is very nice. Now let us come to another word, ‘falling rupee.’ Search it. There is a wonderful quote, not said by the Prime Minister; somebody else said it. I will say it in English. “The way the value of the rupee is falling, it seems there is a competition between the rupee and the Union Government as to whose prestige will fall faster.” The Prime Minister did not say this. The Chief Minister of Gujarat said this in 2013. Sir, try these three words now on this interactive document. The word is ‘Jan Dhan Yojana.’ I will make two quick bullet points. ‘One’ out of ‘four’ Jan Dhan accounts are non-operational. ‘One’ out of ‘ten’ Jan Dhan accounts are zero balance. This is not politics. These are hard numbers. I hope the Finance Minister comes here and gives us these responses. Farmers’ suicides. Sir, truth hurts, and it is okay. ‘Farmer suicides’ – please put this down as your search document. I know a few things about farmers. There was a 25-day hunger strike in December, 2006 by only one leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee. Read what the Supreme Court said in 2016. In 2020, nine of us and 20 from other parties got suspended. We stayed outside. Why – because we were fighting against the draconian farmer bills. So, don’t tell us about farmers. I am wondering why all of us in the Opposition are saying, ‘farmers are unhappy’, ‘Mr. Modi made farmers unhappy’. Of course, not; of course, he didn’t. The farmers are happy, in Texas, but not in Tamil Nadu. The farmers are happy, in Kentucky, but not in Karnataka. The farmers are happy in Wisconsin, but not in West Bengal. Sir, you can carry on searching these words – environment and air pollution. Go, search it! There is nothing in the Budget about environment and air pollution. ‘Minorities’ – We were looking for minorities, the members in the National Commission for Minorities. No post has been filled up. FCRA – 2,000 of those FCRA accounts were run by Christian NGOs doing good work. They were shut down. Social minorities, LGBTQ — nothing mentioned. Sir, I looked for rail safety. Sir, there is continuous cat-calling. Let us have a debate. As it is, the State President has been given a seat in the last row of BJP. Don’t disturb us. Sir, key-in rail safety. We, as a party, objected to the Railway Budget being subsumed to the General Budget. We objected to it. I want to give you some data on rail. Search for ‘federalism’. You won’t find it in the document. Rail Budget has grown 25 times since the UPA-II regime. This is deadly data. Watch this! How much has the budget increased State-by-State? Don’t give it to me in thousands of crores; give it to me on a base of zero, how many times. Gujarat — 29 times increase in Railway Budget. Who runs it? Delhi — 28 times, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh – 24 times, Maharashtra – 20 times, Uttar Pradesh – 18 times. Very good! Keep increasing. Tamil Nadu – eight times. And you love Bengal so much. So, what could we expect — three times! Sir, the bottomline is, you owe Bengal two lakh crore of rupees. Sir, somebody wrote a biography on one of the great entrepreneurs of Gujarat, . He created a great Indian brand, ‘Nirma’. I think it is one of the great Indian brands created in Gujarat for India. Sir, the Finance Minister will reply in a few hours, but the real reply will come after two months from Tamil Nadu and after two months from Kerala. Wait for Bengal too. But the real wait will come in February, 2027, when led by Shri Akhilesh Yadav, the people of Uttar Pradesh will speak in February, 2027. Sir, my colleague and Lok Sabha leader, Abhishek…. I am finishing, Sir. Shri Abhishek Banerjee said something very interesting to which the Finance Minister, I hope, comes and replies. He spoke, inspired by Veer Das. He spoke about two Indias. And I conclude … Sir, this is nice. ….. This is nice because in Class V, in a primary school, we learnt that truth hurts. It is okay. We understand. Sir, I want to end. It is nice that the Minister is leading the … Sir, the Finance Minister, in response to what the opening speaker said, we want to tell her on two Indias. Two-line quote and that is it. .. I quote, “Until you understand the difference between what is written in the GST Act and what is written on a family grocery bill of a poor family, you will keep living in your India. Let us live in our India. Thank you.
