Union Budget 2026: Big Words, Small Answers
Union Budget 2026 is heavy on slogans and light on solutions. It speaks confidently of a “Viksit Bharat” but remains conspicuously silent on India’s most pressing realities—unemployment, rural distress, shrinking household savings, and widening inequality. The Budget prioritises optics over outcomes, offering incremental tweaks where bold structural interventions were needed.
Job creation is addressed more as an aspiration than a plan, social sector allocations lack urgency, and the poor and middle class are expected to survive on assurances rather than tangible relief. Federal concerns of states are brushed aside, reinforcing a centralised approach that ignores regional economic pain.
In essence, Budget 2026 reassures markets and headlines, but leaves millions of citizens asking the same old question: Where are the jobs, incomes, and security? A vision without delivery, it risks becoming another missed opportunity in a slowing economy.
Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha
Youth without jobs.
Falling manufacturing.
Investors pulling out capital.
Household savings plummeting.
Farmers in distress.
Looming global shocks – all ignored.
A Budget that refuses course correction, blind to India’s real crises.
Budget is a Fake Budget. Budget ignored key national issues including unemployment, manufacturing slowdown, declining household savings, and agrarian distress. Described it as “blind to India’s real crises.
Mamta Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal
the Budget “faceless, baseless and visionless. Humpty Dumpty, Just Jugglery Of Words. Anti-Woman & Anti-Farmer’. What they said about three corridors is absolutely garbage of lies. Blatant lies. It is already in process and we have started working there. In the Jangalmahal Jangal Sundari project in Purulia, for this economic corridor, Rs 72,000 Crores are going to be invested…They have not given a single paisa to Bengal. Only one tax is there, GST. They are taking away our money and saying big things that they are giving us money. It is our money…So, they don’t have any moral authority to run the Govt and finish the country like this. They want to destroy the economic structure of the country, the Constitutional structure of this country, the independent agencies…They talk too much but do less work…” Centre views Bengal as Bangladesh… Otherwise why was Bengal not mentioned even once?…We had no expectations with this Budget. They knew that even if they spent money in Bengal, they wouldn’t win. So, from their perspective if you see they have preferred not to spend any money on Bengal,” he said. West Bengal goes to the polls in March-April this year.
Akhilesh Yadav, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha and SP Chief
Here comes the result of the BJP’s budget— the share market has crashed with a bang.
We had said it earlier:
– The question isn’t whether the stock market will open on Sunday; the question is how much further it will fall.
– When there’s no hope from the BJP government, what can be expected from its budget?
– We consider every BJP budget as a 1/20 budget (one divided by twenty) because it’s for just 5% of the people.
– The BJP’s budget is one for securing their commissions and setting up their own people.
– The BJP’s budget is the invisible ledger of BJP-style corruption.
In the 2026 budget:
– This budget mentions neither the common people nor cares about them.
– Even as inflation rises uncontrollably, not granting tax relief to the public in this budget is nothing but ‘tax exploitation.’
– Ten kinds of exemptions have been given for the businesses and travels of the rich, but the plate of hopes for those struggling with unemployment remains empty.
– The middle class feels utterly cheated.
– The exploited, deprived, poor individual seems to be sinking even lower than before. Instead of patching up their sheet, this budget has torn it to shreds further, because social security has been reduced to mere token formalities.
– The farmer, laborer, worker, trader, small shopkeeper can’t even find the relief meant for them with a telescope in hand.
A disappointing, deplorable budget!
MK Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
Even the mother of Chola would have at least a tiny bit of conscience, but the Tamil-hating BJP doesn’t have even a drop of that
Budget2026: Since failure is guaranteed anyway, the Union BJP government has once again snubbed Tamil Nadu!
There are no new projects for Tamil Nadu; the already due Jal Jeevan & education funds are also missing; oh, even the usual Thirukkural quote is absent this time!
When asked for next year’s budget, they’ve recited it like a 5-year plan.
In short, Union Budget 2026 is a disappointing budget! NDA Betrays Tamil Nadu.
Naveen Patnaik, Former Chief Minister of Odisha & Present Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly
I express my disappointment on the #Budget2026 presented today by the Union Government. The budget has offered no noteworthy benefits to #Odisha and its people.
The anticipation from the people of Odisha was that the double engine government would offer a growth momentum with focus on infrastructure, job creation and additional allocation which is due to the state. The state has received very little.
I welcome the proposal to establish the Rare Earth Corridor in Odisha. Odisha is the leading producer of several key minerals and will always contribute to nation building through its rich resources.
It has again been announced to have National Waterways to connect mineral rich areas and industrial centres to the Ports. But this is a decade old proposal without any progress on the ground.
It is a huge disappointment for the people of Odisha that the announcement to develop seven High-Speed Rail corridors between cities as ‘growth connectors’ does not feature Odisha. Odisha BJP nipped the #BhubaneswarMetro project earlier and the neglect of people’s needs continues as usual.
And it’s quite baffling that the Tourism centric Scheme for Development of Buddhist Circuits has completely skipped Odisha despite having several very important Buddhist sites including our Diamond Triangle.
As seen from the entirety of the Union Budget, Odisha is getting allocations only for taking its natural resources away and completely ignored when it comes to resource allocation for benefit of people of the State.
It’s time the State BJP Govt takes responsibility for people of Odisha and ensure they get their rightful dues from centre. Odisha and its people deserve more and better from the Union Budget.
