Shashi Tharoor asks what's in Budget 2026 for Kerala? - ‘Heard fishermen, coconuts - that could be Kerala’

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has reacted to Union Budget 2026, suggesting that there was no mention of Kerala anywhere in the speech except for “coconuts and fishermen”. Demanding to know what's in the budget for the state, Shashi Tharoor said that any announcement on All India Institute of Ayurveda was awaited but there was none in Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speech.

“Where is All India Institute of Ayurveda. Where is it? We wanted this in Kerala. We have had a long tradition of Ayurveda. But we didn't hear Kerala's name. We heard the names of fishermen and coconuts - that could be Kerala.”

“But when they spoke of ship repair, they mentioned Varanasi and Patna names but not Kerala. This is a little surprising. But perhaps there are more details in the budget document. I have yet to read it. There were very few details in the speech though,” the Congress MP said. Also Read | What indirect tax measures FM Sitharaman announced? Check full list

Shashi Tharoor also used a cricketing analogy to slam the Budget and express his disappointment. Tharoor said Sitharaman's Budget speech seemed to have “lots of subheadings but very few specifics”, and was “completely short” of an overall vision.

He also asserted that the biggest unanswered question which was left unanswered was about jobs and there was little in the speech to indicate how employment in the counntry would be generated.

When asked if the finance minister had “hit it out of the park” or “missed the ball or been stumped”, Shashi 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.” Also Read | Govt to restructure public sector PFC, its arm REC, as part of broader vision for NBFCs

“On the big-picture issues, there was nothing that we could hear for the middle class and the lower middle class. There was nothing there for the states. In fact, fiscal devolution remains unchanged at 41 per cent, and many states have complained that they don't have enough to fulfil their own obligations to their citizens,” the former Union minister said.

There was “genuine concern” over it, he said.