New Delhi, Feb. 2 -- The Opposition parties dubbed the General Budget 2026-27 as visionless and "blind to India's real crises," with former finance minister P Chidambaram pointing out that none of the key challenges as identified by the Economic Survey were addressed by his successor Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said "Youth without jobs. Falling manufacturing. Investors pulling out capital. Household savings plummeting. Farmers in distress. Looming global shocks - all ignored. A Budget that refuses course correction, blind to India's real crises." West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed, "The economy is derailed. The budget is anti-poor, anti-youth, anti-women, and anti-farmer. The budget is anti-SC, ST, and OBC." Chidambaram, flanked by Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Amitabh Dubey, said Economic Survey and experts had identified ten challenges including the penal tariffs imposed by the United States have created stress for manufacturers, especially exporters, protracted trade conflicts that will weigh on investment, the growing trade deficit, especially with China; The low Gross Fixed Capital Formation (approx. 30 per cent) and the reluctance of the private sector to invest and the uncertain outlook for the flow of FDI (foreign direct investment) into India and the persistent outflow of FPI for the last several months. He also highlighted problem areas such as the agonisingly slow pace of fiscal consolidation and the continued high fiscal deficit and revenue deficit, contrary to the FRBM, the persistent gap between officially announced inflation numbers and the ground realities in terms of bills for household expenditure, education, healthcare and transport, the closure of lakhs of MSMEs and the struggle for survival of the remaining MSMEs, the precarious employment situation, especially youth unemployment and growing urbanisation and the deteriorating infrastructure in urban areas (municipalities and corporations). Claiming that none of this was addressed by the Finance Minister's speech, Chidambaram said, "Even by an accountant's standards, it was a poor account of the management of the finances in 2025-26....