India, March 26 -- Budgets are as much about messaging as they are about hard-headed macroeconomics. The first budget by the newly elected BJP government in Delhi must have been prepared with this in mind. By presenting Delhi's first budget with a targeted spending of Rs.1 lakh crore, the government has scored an important political point. The fact that the Delhi government's spending is expected to go up by a massive 44% between the FY25 Revised Estimates (RE) and the FY26 Budget Estimates (BE) means that the national capital, which is home to more than 20 million people, will see a big fiscal boost. That Delhi will see almost a 10-percentage point increase in the share of capital expenditure - it is expected to double from Rs.14,000 crore to Rs.28,000 crore - should offer some respite to its beleaguered infrastructure. This means that, at least in intent - there is no guarantee of BE numbers necessarily translating into actual spending - the new BJP government has managed to maintain a balance between its political imperatives and Delhi's infrastructural needs. The Capital, which has great economic dynamism but also very high levels of economic inequality, deserves exactly this. In many ways, this was the crux of the mandate which the BJP received in the elections held in February....