“It’s a Humpty Dumpty Budget… vision-less, mission-less, action-less,” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the waiting mediapersons on Sunday as she hurried towards the airport to catch a flight to New Delhi to meet Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state ahead of Assembly polls.
As the BJP highlighted the new dedicated freight corridor linking Dankuni in West Bengal to Surat in Gujarat, an integrated East Coast Industrial Corridor with a major node at Durgapur, and tourism-focused interventions under the Centre’s Purvodaya vision to reinforce its narrative of development-led politics in the state, the chief minister rejected the claims saying there was nothing new in the Budget.
“The railway freight corridor from Dankuni that they are talking about was already in the 2009 railway budget, which I had presented in Parliament. You can see it there. It is mentioned as Dankuni-Amritsar corridor. That project has been pending for about 15 years. Regarding the new corridors they have announced, we already have announced six corridors – Dankuni to Bardhaman to Bankura to Durgapur to Purulia. Other is Kalyani to Bardhaman, Birbhum, Malda, Siliguri, and Cooch Behar. We have announced six corridors, which will cover the entire state. So what they said about the three corridors, it is absolutely a garbage of lies, blatant lies. It is already in progress, and we have started working on it,” said Banerjee.
“We have started the Jungle Sundari project in Purulia . In this economic corridor, Rs 72,000 crore is going to be invested. Already, there are so many people who are investment in it. They are setting a cement hub. West Bengal is now a cement hub, coal hub, leather hub, skill hub. Even Amazon, Flipkart all are doing business in Dankuni, Kalyani and other places,” she added.
“For Bengal, they have given nothing. They are just talking big big… There is a proverb in Bangla. Chorer Maa-er boro gola (The mother of thieves shouts the most),” the TMC supremo said, adding that the BJP government at the Centre did not give “a single paisa to Bengal”.
“They are taking away our money. But talking big about giving us money… It is our money. What they are collecting from West Bengal, the central government is not giving us the funds. So, they do not have the moral authority to run the government and finish the country like this,” she added.
Pointing to the fall in the Sensex and Nifty on Sunday following the Budget, the chief minister said, “The economy has been derailed… They want to destroy the economic structure of the country, the constitutional structure of the country… They only use jugglery of words.”
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Calling the Union Budget “anti-women, anti-poor, anti-farmer, anti-youth, anti-SC, anti-ST, and anti-OBC”, the chief minster said that the Centre has reduced several subsidies, affecting the common people.
Echoing the CM, her principal chief adviser Amit Mitra said there was sharp reductions in social sector allocations in this year’s Budget as compared to the one in 2015-16.
Mitra said key sectors impacting farmers, youth and weaker sections have seen steady cuts over the years, while headline allocations failed to translate into actual spending.
Citing education, he said expenditure ideally should have been 5-6 per cent of total expenditure but in reality it has declined from 3.8 per cent in 2015-16 to 2.60 per cent in the current Budget estimates.
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“At a time when the world is increasing education spending, India is cutting it. Education expenditure should be close to 5-6 per cent, but this Budget moves in the opposite direction,” he alleged.
On fertiliser subsidy, Mitra alleged that allocation has been reduced from 4.04 per cent of total expenditure in 2015-16 to 3.19 per cent in the current Budget estimates. “This is a critical cut and is anti-farmer,” he said.
He also flagged reduced allocations for weaker sections of the society– Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and minorities, stating that spending declined from 0.21 per cent of the total Budget in 2015-16 to 0.19 per cent, and is estimated to fall further. “This shows neglect of weaker sections,” Mitra said.
He also questioned the credibility of the Centre’s data, citing massive gaps between Budget Estimates (BE) and actual spending.
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He used the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) as a primary example. For Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), he said the 2024-25 budget estimate of around Rs 30,170 crore was revised to Rs 13,670 crore, while actual expenditure stood at only Rs 5,815 crore. Similar patterns were seen in PMAY (Gramin) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), he added.
”These examples show that Budget estimates are not reliable. It is unbelievable, and that means it is a bluff. By the time actual figures come, allocations collapse,” Mitra said.
Criticizing Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for ignoring the labour market, Mitra expressed concern over the “brain drain” and capital flight. He said that approximately 25,400 high-net-worth individuals have recently left India to seek citizenship elsewhere.
“Around 25,400 people with high net worth in India left the country, left their citizenship. They took citizenship in other countries. NRIs send remittance, and now they are begging them to come and invest. Those who send remittance are being called for investing in the country,” he said.
