Former finance minister and Congress MP P Chidambaram on Sunday said the Union Budget 2026-27 and the Finance Minister’s speech failed to address India’s key economic challenges, and fell short on both economic strategy and statesmanship.Addressing a press conference at 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi, Chidambaram said the speech appeared disconnected from the concerns flagged in the Economic Survey 2025-26 and offered little explanation for what he described as a weak fiscal performance in the outgoing year. He said the government either had not read the Economic Survey or had chosen to ignore it altogether.Chidambaram said the survey had identified multiple pressures on the economy, including stress on exporters due to penal tariffs imposed by the United States, prolonged global trade conflicts affecting investment, a widening trade deficit with China, low levels of gross fixed capital formation, uncertain foreign direct investment flows, continued foreign portfolio outflows, and slow fiscal consolidation in violation of the FRBM framework.He also pointed to the gap between official inflation data and household expenses, the closure of a large number of MSMEs, rising youth unemployment, and deteriorating urban infrastructure.None of these issues, he said, found meaningful mention in the FM’s speech. He added that the lack of engagement with real economic concerns was evident in the muted response in Parliament and the audience tuning out during the address.Focusing on fiscal management in 2025-26, Chidambaram said revenue receipts were short by Rs 78,086 crore, while total expenditure fell short by Rs 1,00,503 crore. Revenue expenditure, he said, was lower by Rs 75,168 crore, and capital expenditure was cut by Rs 1,44,376 crore, with reductions of Rs 25,335 crore at the Centre and Rs 1,19,041 crore at the state level.He noted that the Centre’s capital expenditure declined from 3.2 per cent of GDP in 2024-25 to 3.1 per cent in 2025-26, without any explanation offered in the Budget speech.Chidambaram said the cuts in revenue expenditure had disproportionately affected sectors that directly impact ordinary citizens. He cited reductions of Rs 53,067 crore in rural development, Rs 39,573 crore in urban development, Rs 9,999 crore in social welfare, Rs 6,985 crore in agriculture, Rs 6,701 crore in education, and Rs 3,686 crore in health.He also flagged a sharp reduction in allocations for the Jal Jeevan Mission, which was cut from Rs 67,000 crore to Rs 17,000 crore in the revised estimates. While the allocation for 2026-27 has been raised to Rs 67,670 crore, Chidambaram questioned the credibility of the figure given the scale of the earlier cut.On fiscal targets, Chidambaram said the revised estimate of the fiscal deficit for 2025-26 remained at 4.4 per cent of GDP, while the projection for 2026-27 showed a marginal reduction of just 0.1 percentage point. The revenue deficit, he said, would continue at 1.5 per cent, reflecting a lack of seriousness in fiscal consolidation.He also criticised the continued proliferation of schemes and initiatives announced in the speech, saying he counted at least 24 new schemes, missions, funds, institutes and committees, many of which, he said, were likely to disappear quietly within a year.Referring to Part B of the Budget speech, Chidambaram said the Finance Minister had made changes to tax rates months after the passage of the Income Tax Act, 2026, which comes into force on April 1. He said most Indians were unaffected by income tax changes and that for the average citizen, only a few minor concessions in indirect taxes would matter. He said he welcomed those limited relief measures.Chidambaram concluded that the Budget and the accompanying speech failed to offer a coherent economic roadmap and did not rise to the level of leadership required in the current economic context.