Kerala Budget 2025: BJP calls Budget dispiriting, denounces ‘extortionate’ land tax hike

BJP State president criticizes Kerala Budget 2025-26 as dispiriting, lacking coherent plan, and ignoring key sectors and issues.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president K. Surendran has termed the Kerala Budget 2025-26 “dispiriting.”

Addressing a press conference in Kozhikode on Friday (February 7, 2025), Mr. Surendran said the Budget fell flat of expectations and dismally failed in holding forth a coherent plan to mitigate the State’s crippling fiscal crisis. 

Mr. Surendran claimed that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) pegged Kerala’s “uncollected tax revenue” at ₹28,000 crore.

He said the government had “extortionately hiked” the land tax by 50% to tide over the fund crunch caused by its “lax and corrupt tax administration at the public’s expense.” He said the BJP would launch aggressive street protests against the “anti-people” Budget. 

Mr. Surendran said Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal had “not done his homework.” He alleged that Mr. Balagopal had merely repeated the tall claims and shoddily compiled assertions reflected in previous Budgets and the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) “staid political rhetoric.”

Mr. Surendran said the Budget bypassed the government’s public distribution and market intervention systems, leaving taxpayers immensely vulnerable to inflation and price rises.

It also ignored the Higher Education sector, despite claims of transforming Kerala into a knowledge economy, he added.