Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin made a scathing attack on the Union government’s Budget presented on Tuesday, July 23. Calling the budget a “great betrayal” he said that none of the demands put forth on behalf of Tamil Nadu including fund allocations for railways and the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) were considered.

The CM has also announced that he will not be attending the NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting that will be convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27,  as the Union government “boycotted Tamil Nadu” in the budget. 

Speaking at a press meet Stalin said he had set forth a few demands for Tamil Nadu. They included funds allocation for the Chennai Metro Rail, approval of metro rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai, funds for railways projects that have already been announced and approval for an overhead expressway between Tambaram and Chengalpattu. But Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman has not announced any of these in the budget, he said.

Stalin alleged that the Union government announced schemes only to satisfy certain state parties which are in alliance with it and helped the Bharatiya Janata Party, which failed to achieve a majority on its own, to form the government.  The Union budget had announced several packages for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, where the JD(U) and the TDP, respectively, are in alliance with the BJP. In the 2024 general elections, the BJP failed to cross the halfway mark, forcing it to depend on TDP and JD(U) in order to form the government. Stalin alleged that the Budget was largely to keep only these two parties happy. 

“The Union government announced the CMRL project but has been deceiving us without allocating funds. There is no guarantee that the schemes announced for those states [Bihar and Andhra Pradesh] will actually be carried out,” Stalin said.

Referring to the impacts of the Cyclone Michaung and the floods that affected southern districts like Thoothukudi, Nagapattinam and Tirunelveli, Stalin added that the state government had requested around Rs 37,000 crore as disaster relief. So far the Union government has only given us Rs 276 crore. 

“There are no special schemes in this budget for Tamil Nadu, none of our demands have been met and no new railway projects have been announced. The finance minister has forgotten about all the states except the two states that are holding up the BJP. A national budget has to be inclusive of all the states in the country. In that regard, this budget is mostly an injustice.”