Abhishek Banerjee slams Budget for ignoring West Bengal

TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee has criticised the Union Budget for ignoring West Bengal and failing to address farmers, youth and other communities. He accused the Centre of branding Bengalis as Bangladeshis and called the Budget visionless and baseless

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday accused the Centre of branding people of West Bengal as “Bangladeshis” and lambasted the Finance Minister for not mentioning the state in her Budget speech.

Asked about the Budget, Banerjee said it has no solutions for any community and called it a “faceless, baseless and visionless Budget”. “The Budget speech was 85 minutes long — 5,100 seconds — Bengal was not even mentioned. Forget Bengal; farmers, youth… there was nothing concrete for anyone.

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“They talk about AI, Skill India and technological advancement; how would youth get employment, how would employment be generated, there is no mention. There is nothing on how to increase farmers’ income, there is nothing for any community,” Banerjee said.

“It is the Union government and its Ministers, the ones who presented the Budget, they call us Bangladeshis. Bengal was not even mentioned. Jal Jeevan Mission money has been stopped, they have not even fulfilled old promises…” he said.

Accusing the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister of branding ten crore people of Bengal as Bangladeshis, he said, “For the people of the state — workers, farmers, fishermen and the youth — there is nothing in this Budget. There is no roadmap for young people.”

Banerjee further said they have no expectations from the BJP-led government at the Centre.

“We have no expectations from this government. After 2021, the way the BJP has tortured the people of Bengal leaves us with no expectations from them. From the BJP’s perspective, they know they will lose Bengal lock, stock and barrel, which is why they deliberately chose not to allocate funds to the state,” he said.

The TMC leader called Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech a “self-appraisal report”. “The government would defend its Budget; to me, it is more like a self-appraisal report written by its own PR department. It does not have any concrete solution to offer to anybody,” he said.

He also said that while the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) already exists in Bengaluru and new ones are announced for Jharkhand and Assam, West Bengal “did not get anything”.

Senior TMC leader Saugata Roy also said there are no new announcements in the Budget and slammed the Union government for West Bengal not being mentioned in Sitharaman’s speech.

“The Finance Minister was given no freedom to make any new announcement. Old schemes have been repeated… None of the states got anything, and West Bengal did not get anything at all,” he said.