Has Budget 2026 silently focused on poll-bound Tamil Nadu and West Bengal?
India Today
While Tamil Nadu walked away with a Rare Earths Corridor, high-speed rails, cash crop boosts and a push for its key archaeological site, West Bengal too gained in the Union Budget 2026-27 through a freight corridor and high-speed rail line. Both the non-BJP states will be holding Assembly polls in 2026.
"Kichu dayeni... Chorer mayer boro gola," West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, as she summed up in Bangla how she perceived the Union Budget 2026-27. Translated loosely as "got nothing... the guilty party makes the most noise," Mamata's remark captured her frustration over what poll-bound West Bengal received from the Budget. The DMK, which leads the coalition government in Tamil Nadu, also said there was nothing in Budget 2026-27 for the state. Dissecting the Budget, however, reveals that the Centre has silently focused on the two poll-bound states, with Tamil Nadu seemingly walking away with a little more than Bengal.
Be it the announcement of Rare Earth Corridors, the rollout of High-Speed Rail Corridors, or Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's push to promote plantation and production of cash crops such as coconut, sandalwood, cocoa and cashew, the signals were hard to miss. Adding to that, Sitharaman even chose to wear a Tamil Nadu handwoven maroon Kanjeevaram saree. Was that a visual cue? Policy messaging?
The election for the Tamil Nadu Assembly is expected to be held between April and May 2026. The West Bengal Assembly election is due on or before May 7. Both states are ruled by parties from the Opposition, the DMK and the Trinamool Congress, which is led by Mamata Banerjee.
But the Opposition will oppose, more so with polls knocking on the doors. While Mamata alleged that West Bengal got nothing in the Budget, even Tamil Nadu, which appeared to have received a lot, has its ruling party pushing back. The DMK's parliamentary leader, Kanimozhi, said that "even elections couldn't persuade the Union BJP government to remember Tamil Nadu in this Budget".
However, away from the political noise, the clearer picture is that Tamil Nadu did get quite a lot if you look at the main announcements in Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speech. That said, it's not that Bengal got nothing at all. It did get some, just not as much as Tamil Nadu did.
For West Bengal, the headline announcements include the Varanasi-Siliguri high-speed rail corridor and a new freight corridor between Dankuni and Surat. While these routes are tagged to Bengal, the Varanasi-Siliguri line barely runs 20-30 kilometres through the state before entering Bihar, and the Dankuni route exits the state within 200-250 km into Jharkhand. However, as the terminal point of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, Dankuni will still benefit, now more, with a new direct link to Gujarat's port city of Surat.
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