BJP Calls Mamata's Last Budget Before Polls 'Sham, Without Focus'

The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Government in West Bengal today presented its last Budget before the 2026 Assembly Elections with a clear focus on social welfare schemes designed to garner political capital.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party slammed the exercise as a "sham which had no focus on employment generation".

Calling it a "bekaar birodhi budget," BJP MLAs under the leadership of Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition, walked out of the Assembly even as the Budget was being read out by Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya.

At a media conference after the Budget presentation, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the Centre for stopping funds under the Prime Minister's Awas Yojana (PMAY) and announced that her Government had started its own "Banglar Bari" programme and the State Budget had announced a Rs 9600-crore outlay designed to benefit 28 lakh beneficiaries. "All the beneficiaries will get the money by December this year," she said.

State BJP chief and Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar dismissed this and said that this was a way to funnel money to "Trinamool goons". Interestingly, this came on a day when the Supreme Court came down heavily on political parties for promising freebies ahead of polls and thereby creating a "class of parasites".