Thiruvananthapuram | A day after Kerala's UDF government presented its maiden budget, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the opposition CPI(M)-led LDF, accusing it of offering only 'tired old ideological cliches' in response to what he described as a visionary budget.

In a post on X, Tharoor criticised the Left's response to the budget and referred to remarks made by Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan.

Quoting Vijayan's statement that the previous two LDF governments had demonstrated that "welfare, social justice and public investment can go hand in hand with economic growth and modern development", Tharoor said the Left's model had come at the cost of a massive debt burden.

"Yes, at the cost of building up a Rs 5.07 lakh crore debt, and borrowing money to pay salaries and Onam bonuses," he said in the social media post.

The Congress leader further alleged that the LDF's decade-long tenure was marked by "debt, failure, corruption, sleight-of-hand accounting and worse".

"When the Left tries to argue about budgets after their decade-long record, one never knows whether to laugh or cry," he added.

The remarks came a day after Vijayan criticised the UDF government's budget, alleging that its repeated claims of a severe financial crisis were contradicted by the allocations announced in the document.

The CPI(M) leader had contended that the previous LDF government had left substantial funds in the state treasury and argued that the resources could have been utilised for more welfare measures and development initiatives.

Vijayan had also alleged that allocations for several sectors were either reduced or fell short of expectations.