The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday issued a point-by-point rebuttal to the charges made by Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi during the debate on Union Budget 2026 in the Lok Sabha, selling out the nation, surrendering before US President Donald Trump and compromising India’s interests.
Taking to social media platform X, BJP’s chief spokesperson and Lok Sabha MP Anil Baluni accused Rahul Gandhi of making “baseless and misleading” charges on the India-US trade deal.
He alleged that the LoP chose theatrics over truth and made “convenient misinterpretations”. “He did not merely critique the document. He misquoted it, misread it, and then built an argument on that distortion. Parliament deserves scrutiny grounded in facts, not selective readings and convenient misinterpretations. Deliberately misrepresenting the Budget weakens democratic debate and disrespects the intelligence of the people of India,” Baluni said.
On Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the Narendra Modi government has given away Indians’ data, the “most powerful asset of the 21st century”, to the US, Baluni said that the Union Budget has proposed a tax break for companies setting up data centres in India until 2047. “This will further India’s goal of data localisation. With more data centres in India, our IT companies will be able to deliver cloud and other AI solutions to clients in the West. More data centres in India equals more opportunities for our IT companies, and equals data localisation in the long run. The data of 1.4 billion Indians stays in India,” he argued.
The BJP spokesperson also refuted Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the Budget 2026 didn’t have any provision to fortify India’s supply chains amid global uncertainties, stating that there is a proposal for rare earths, a new semiconductor mission that will focus on all the levels of the value chain and critical mineral corridors running through Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
The BJP leader also accused Rahul Gandhi of quoting the “older version” of the White House fact sheet on the India-US trade deal. He stated that India has not opened up its farming sector for US exports, as claimed in the US fact sheet that was updated after the initial version claimed that certain pulses would be imported from the US. “The updated fact sheet of the US Government carries no mention of pulses,” Baluni said.
Facts are clearly not the LoP’s strong suit.
Rahul Gandhi has once again chosen theatrics over truth, misleading both the House and the Nation. During today’s Budget discussion in the Lok Sabha, he did not merely critique the document. He misquoted it, misread it, and then built…
— Anil Baluni (@anil_baluni) February 11, 2026
He echoed Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal that India is not opening up its farming and dairy sector to the USA and the same stance has been maintained during the “mother of all deals” with the European Union. “He is citing an older US government fact sheet that framed India’s proposed $500 billion purchases as a commitment. That language has since been corrected. By relying on an outdated fact sheet, Gandhi is presenting an inflated claim that the US government itself has walked back,” he wrote.
He termed Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the US has increased its tariffs on Indian imports to 18 per cent from 3 per cent that New Delhi purportedly paid before Trump’s imposition of 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs as an “incomplete assessment.”
‘You are going to talk to us as equals’: LoP Rahul Gandhi’s message to Donald Trump amid trade deal row
Rahul Gandhi had also claimed that India is not receiving any commitment from the US on its exports. On this, Baluni informed that since FY15, India’s trade surplus with the US has doubled from $20 billion to $40.9 billion in FY25. “Our exports to the US have risen from $42.4 billion in FY15 to $86 billion in FY25. Since 2022, our electronic exports to the US have gone from almost zero to $20 billion in 2025.”
On Rahul Gandhi’s accusation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi succumbed to US pressure and compromised Indian interests by agreeing to stop purchasing Russian oil, the BJP leader said that India has always prioritised its national interests, adding that imports from Russia rose from about 0.1 million barrels per day to nearly 2 million barrels per day in 2023.
“The Modi government has shown that it will bypass Western pressure to secure India’s energy needs. Rahul Gandhi’s argument has already been disproven, and it is worth recalling that his own party opposed Russian oil imports at the time,” he added.