Modi govt’s Budget 2026 a “casteist betrayal” of Dalits and Adivasis: Congress
New Delhi: The Congress has slammed the BJP-led Indian government’s Budget 2026, calling it a “casteist betrayal” that sidelines Dalits and Adivasis while serving the optics-driven political agenda of the Modi government.
According to Kashmir Media Service, speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Chairman of the All India Congress Committee’s Schedule Caste (SC) Department, and Vikrant Bhuria, Chairman, Adivasi Congress, said the budget reflected exclusion of Dalits and Adivasis rather than empowerment. “While the Modi government has projected allocations of Rs. 1.96 lakh crore for SCs and Rs. 1.41 lakh crore for Schedule Tribes (STs), only Rs. 75,077 crore and Rs. 62,093 crore, respectively, were actually set aside for their welfare schemes,” they said, exposing the gap between rhetoric and reality.
The Congress leaders said that the Modi government has merged large portions of SC-ST funds into generic schemes that fail to address caste- and tribe-based exclusion. They said that only 41 per cent of schemes under SC–ST allocations were genuinely relevant, while 42 per cent were general schemes and 17 per cent were obsolete or irrelevant.
“Dalit–Adivasi welfare has been reduced to a bookkeeping exercise focused on optics rather than outcomes,” they added, highlighting that the declining utilisation of SC–ST funds has steadily declined between FY 2020-21 and FY 2024–25. “In 2024–25, only about 75 per cent of SC funds were utilised, largely through non-targeted routes. This is discrimination by design rather than administrative inefficiency.”
They further criticised cuts in the National Overseas Scholarship, reduced to Rs. 125 crore, noting that of 106 students selected in 2025–26, only 40 received funding. Thousands of crores allocated under the SC Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) were parked in schemes such as fertiliser and urea subsidies, telecom compensation, infrastructure maintenance, and road works, primarily benefiting dominant communities rather than Dalit and Adivasi labourers.
Referring to the education sector, they pointed to meagre allocations for student-centric schemes such as ‘Top Class Education’, ‘National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship’ and ‘SC-ST Hub Centres’, even as large sums from the funds meant for SC Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan flowed to institutions like IITs, NITs and central universities. Campuses continued to witness caste discrimination, without any central law to protect SC-ST students’ dignity and safety.
Gautam and Bhuria concluded that the Modi government’s budget reinforces systemic neglect and discrimination against Dalits and Adivasis, turning promises of empowerment into a performative exercise.
