Abhishek Banerjee calls budget 85 mins of meaningless talk; says government sees us as Bangladeshis

Trinamool Congress (TMC) National General Secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee launched a stinging attack on the Union Budget 2026–27, accusing the Central Government of treating West Bengal as a foreign entity. Speaking to reporters shortly after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman concluded her 85-minute address, Banerjee provided a mathematical breakdown to highlight the perceived neglect. He noted that in the 5,100 seconds of the speech, the name of "Bengal" was not uttered even once, suggesting a deliberate attempt to erase the state’s presence from the national fiscal narrative.

The TMC leader further claimed that the budget was "faceless, baseless, and visionless," especially regarding employment and agrarian relief. He criticized the government’s heavy emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and technological advancement, calling them distractions from the lack of a concrete plan to provide jobs for the country’s youth. According to Banerjee, the budget offers no financial security for farmers and fails to address the ground-level economic struggles of the common man, focusing instead on high-level jargon that does not translate into real-world benefits.

Escalating his rhetoric, Banerjee alleged that the Center’s spending priorities are dictated purely by electoral math. He stated that the BJP-led government had no intention of investing in Bengal because they realized that such investments would not yield political victories for them in the state. In a provocative remark, he claimed the Center now views Bengal through the same lens as Bangladesh, justifying the total absence of state-specific projects or financial allocations in the latest budget.