3 min readFeb 11, 2026 09:06 AM IST
First published on: Feb 11, 2026 at 09:06 AM IST
The ongoing discussion on the 2026-27 Union Budget in Rajya Sabha saw the Opposition parties attacking the Union government over the India-United States interim trade agreement and changes in tariffs, on Tuesday. The parties also criticised the Centre’s economic performance and questioned it on the “rising economic inequality”.
Treasury benches, for their part, said that Opposition parties were wilfully ignorant. Pointing out that the European Union had signed a major trade deal with India, and not China, they asked if it would have been possible in a “dead economy”.
TMC’s Sukhendu Sekhar Ray criticised what he termed “drum beating” around the interim trade deal with the US and asked the Centre to clarify whether “we have left out time-tested friend” Russia by agreeing to stop buying oil from them and joined hands with a country that has “all along stood against India”.
ALSO READ | ‘Congress itself isn’t sure’: Amid push for a no-trust motion against Om Birla, SP, TMC not on the same page
Congress MP Jebi Mather Hisham asked what was “wonderful” in the deal for “our farmers”. RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha raised the issue of unemployment.
Murli Deora of the Shiv Sena commended the Finance Minister and the Budget, which, he said, was presented amid a very “volatile, disruptive” time, which “the world had not seen since the end of the second World War”. Deora said that while the previous regimes had ignored manufacturing, this (NDA) government’s approach marked a “tectonic shift” in thinking. Making a veiled swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the former UPA minister said, “Some people overseas and here had the wilful ignorance to call our economy dead… If it is dead, how is it the fastest growing economy in the world?”
ALSO READ | ‘Cannot be insulated from Parliamentary scrutiny’: Brittas writes to Birla, Radhakrishnan on PM CARES fund
Praising the Budget, BJP’s Surendra Singh Nagar said that after listening to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, one would think that nothing good was happening in the country.
NCP’s (SP) Fauzia Khan sought to point out that India stood well below global average in the Human Development Index.
TMC MPs walk out after ‘mini Pak’ remark
The Rajya Sabha saw noisy scenes on Tuesday when BJP MP from West Bengal Samik Bhattacharya said an area of encroached land in Kolkata was known as “mini Pakistan”, leading the Trinamool Congress MPs from the state to raise objections and walk out.While asking a supplementary question during Question Hour, Bhattacharya said, “It is a matter of record that around 170 acres of prime port land is under encroachment and illegal occupation. A substantial portion of this encroachment is located in the Garden Reach, Metiabruz and Khidirpur areas, which have been publicly referred to as mini Pakistan by the mayor of Kolkata,” he said, leading to protests from the TMC MPs.
The Centre told Parliament it does not maintain verified state-wise data — including for Punjab — on Indians who travelled abroad illegally via routes like the ‘Dunki Route’ or were later deported. 
Share
