Union Budget turns election spotlight on Bengal with freight corridors, industry push

Union Budget 2026 allocates funds for the Dankuni–Surat freight corridor, East Coast Industrial Corridor, tourism under Purvodaya, and 4,000 e-buses, drawing political debate as West Bengal prepares for Assembly elections, with TMC dismissing the moves as campaign-driven.

Kolkata: As West Bengal braces for a fiercely contested Assembly election, the Union Budget presented on Sunday has unmistakably strayed into campaign territory, rolling out high-visibility infrastructure proposals that the ruling TMC dismissed as a “political signalling tool” rather than a credible fiscal commitment.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s ninth consecutive budget proposed a 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, measures that the BJP sees as reinforcing its narrative of development-led politics in eastern India ahead of the polls.

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The Dankuni–Surat freight corridor, pitched as a move to promote environmentally sustainable cargo movement and reduce logistics costs, has emerged as the budget’s most politically salient promise for Bengal.

The Centre has argued that shifting freight towards inland water transport and integrated corridors would unlock industrial growth in the State, long portrayed by the BJP as having suffered from policy stagnation under the Trinamool Congress.

Elections to the 294-member Assembly are due in the next three months. The budget also proposed the creation of tourism destinations across five Purvodaya states and provisions for 4,000 e-buses, announcements that the BJP believes can be leveraged in a State where employment, urban mobility and regional imbalance have become major electoral talking points. The timing, however, has not gone unnoticed.