Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan (file) | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in Kerala has accused the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of delivering a Budget that sought to paper over Kerala’s dire economic situation by regurgitating empty promises. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan termed Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal’s nearly two-hour Budget speech on February 5 (Monday) an election-eve screed that targeted the Opposition to conceal the government’s alarming fiscal failures. He said Mr. Balagopal had relegated the Budget to the subaltern status of a worn-out political statement speckled with cliched, obsolete and hollow-sounding communist jargon. Mr. Satheesan said Mr. Balagopal destroyed the Budget’s sanctity and used the presentation in the Assembly as a bully pulpit to demonise the Opposition repeatedly. He said Mr. Balagopal used the heavily politicised Budget speech as a fig leaf to cover the embarrassing fact that almost 50% of the funds earmarked for plan expenditure in critical sectors, including social welfare, remained unspent. Mr. Satheesan said successive Budgets presented by Mr. …