Spar over vote-on-account, TMC trying to hide tremendous financial crisis faced by Bengal: MLA Ashok Lahiri
Telegraph | 7 February 2026
Leaders of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress on Friday engaged in a war of words inside and outside the Assembly over the vote-on-account tabled by the Mamata Banerjee government.
While the BJP sought to portray the vote-on-account as an election manifesto filled with false assurances, Trinamool launched a statewide campaign to demonstrate that the budget was pro-people and for all sections of society.
The war of words began on the floor of the Assembly when economist and BJP’s Balurghat MLA, Ashok Lahiri, criticised the vote-on-account, arguing that it was economically flawed. He claimed that the term “Humpty Dumpty,” which chief minister Mamata Banerjee had used to describe the February 1 Union Budget, could just as well be applied to the state’s vote-on-account.
“I want to place three issues before you. Bengal has been facing a tremendous financial crisis, and the TMC has been trying to hide it. They cannot pull the state out of the crisis — the next government will have to do that. Secondly, the governor had claimed that 94 social schemes are running in the state. I have demanded a list of all those 94 schemes and details about them,” Lahiri told reporters outside the Assembly.
“The third issue I raised is that four things are very important: education, health, infrastructure, and administration. I emphasised those issues,” he added.
The BJP MLAs walked out of the House after finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya allegedly made a personal remark questioning Lahiri’s expertise. The BJP MLAs later protested in front of the Assembly, calling it an insult to an economist like Lahiri, who served in several key positions, including that of chief economic adviser to the government of India.
When Lahiri was asked about his reaction to questions raised in the House about his knowledge in his field, he responded in a gentlemanly tone, saying that he was not a “pandit” but still a student who learns every day.
Bhattacharya, however, said she had not insulted the economist.
“I was just mentioning that he may not know what happened in the past 15 years, as he was outside Bengal during the first 10 years. We never launched any personal attack,” said Bhattacharya, who later addressed a press conference.
BJP leaders, however, did not confine their attack to the Assembly.
Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition, later spoke in detail about what he called the failures and false assurances in the vote-on-account at the Salt Lake office of the BJP. The Nandigram MLA produced budget documents from 2013–14 and 2014–15 to show how, according to him, the state government had been misleading Bengal’s youth by introducing unemployment allowances under new names.
“They had launched the Yuvashree scheme with a monthly allowance of ₹1,500 for unemployed youth and created an employment bank. I asked the state government about the status of the 17 lakh unemployed youth who had applied to the employment bank. Mamata Banerjee has claimed that the new allowance scheme will be launched from August this year, but the tenure of the vote-on-account will end in July. So, it is more of an election bill than a vote-on-account,” Adhikari said.
Finance minister Bhattacharya, however, claimed the Yuvashree scheme and the newly launched Banglar Yuba Sathi scheme were completely different.
Trinamool also activated all its district units to campaign that the budget was aimed at the poor and marginalised people of Bengal. The party highlighted how Mamata had considered all sections of society, from marginal workers to landless farmers, by holding pres conferences in each organisational district.