The Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, today alleged that in the state budget all Central government-run projects were shown as state government schemes while he has termed the budget as one that lacks vision and direction.

“All the public friendly projects of the Union government were presented as state projects in the budget. This is an attempt to deceive the people of Bengal,” Mr Adhikary said. He called the budget “directionless” and reasoned that there is no mention of how to eradicate unemployment and poverty. Neither are there any solutions to resolve the dearness allowance issue of the state government employees.

“Not a single line was uttered during the presentation of the state budget regarding the future arrangement of the contractual workers. No mention of what ought to be done to save the state from further borrowing of the money and plans to recover from bankrupt conditions,” he said.

Commenting on some of the projects that the Mamata Banerjee government wishes to implement, such as the Tajpur Port, Mr Adhikari said that these are mere illusions because Tajpur Port is not possible since that requires a huge amount of land. “Does the state government have the guts to buy land for the project? These are just to fool the people. This is an anti-people budget.”

BJP state president Sukanta Majumder said that the BJP in West Bengal will gain a major victory in the next Parliamentary election, drawing inspiration from Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose leadership fetched BJP a significant victory in four state’s Assembly poll. “We shall get more than 25 seats in Parliament election in 2024 and form government in Bengal after 2026 Assembly polls in this state,” he said.

BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh said that Akhilesh Yadav failed to make a mark in the polls since, for campaigning, he had got Mamata Banerjee who spoke gibberish in Hindi. “Mamata in her campaign speech told people the story of Lakhimpur and Hatrash. But in both places, BJP won.”

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reacted strongly to the BJP’s protest today and said that she has “never seen such an attitude of the Opposition, where they cannot extend basic courtesy when Budget is tabled in the House”. “They walk out because they don’t work out. They don’t know how to work but only know how to protest. I have been a seven times MP but has never seen such an attitude during the presentation of the budget. Here, there is no courtesy. They were howling and disturbing while the budget was being read,” she said.