Union Budget 2026-27: ‘Seems to have missed the ball’, Shashi Tharoor slams with cricketing analogy
The Hindu
Shashi Tharoor criticizes Union Budget 2026-27, highlighting its lack of specifics and unanswered questions on job creation.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday (February 1, 2026) used a cricketing analogy to express his disappointment with the Union Budget, saying Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman "seems to have missed the ball".
In an interview with PTI at the news agency's headquarters, Mr. Tharoor said Ms. Sitharaman's Budget speech seemed to have "lots of subheadings but very few specifics", and was "completely short" of an overall vision.
As a Kerala MP, Mr. Tharoor said, he had nothing to be happy about in this Budget.
Union Budget 2026 LIVE
Mr. Tharoor asserted that the biggest unanswered question remains jobs, noting that there was little in the Budget speech to indicate how employment would be generated.
Asked whether the finance minister has "hit it out of the park" or "missed the ball completely and been stumped", Mr. Tharoor said, "I don't know if she's been stumped yet, but she certainly seems to have missed the ball. In one or two places, she may have got edges, but I'm not quite sure that we've got anything off the meat of the bat so far."
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