New Delhi, 1 February (IANS). Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the eighth consecutive budget in the Lok Sabha for FY 2025-26 on 1 February. Prior to this, she has created history by presenting budget seven times in a row. She has presented six full -time and two interim budgets.
The names of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee are among those who placed on the budget table the most times before Sitharaman. Morarji Desai presented the budget 10 times as Finance Minister. Morarji Desai presented five consecutive full budget and an interim budget between 1959 and 1964. He then presented four budgets between 1967 and 1969.
Desai comes after the number of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who presented the Union Budget 9 times. While Pranab Mukherjee has presented the budget eight times. On Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will match Pranab Mukherjee by presenting the budget for the eighth consecutive time.
In fact, Sitharaman has consistently presented the eight budgets in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Sitharaman became the second Finance Minister of the country in 2019. Earlier, Indira Gandhi was the first female finance minister to presented the 1970-71 budget as Finance Minister.
Sitharaman first introduced the Union Budget in the year 2019. Between 2019 and 2024, he presented two interim budgets and four full budgets. He presented the seventh budget for FY 2024-25 on 23 July after 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He also broke the record of presenting the budget of Morarji Desai by presenting seven budgets.
Nirmala Sitharaman also has a record of speaking two hours and 42 minutes on the budget day. Sitharaman completed his speech in 2 hours 17 minutes while presenting the budget for FY 2019-20 in 2019. He made a new record of budget speech in the year 2020-21. He had read the longest budget speech of 2 hours 42 minutes in the Lok Sabha. In FY 2021-22, he read a 100-minute long budget speech. In the budget of the next financial year 2022-23, he completed his budget speech in 1 hour 31 minutes. His speech was 1 hour 25 minutes in the last full budget of the Modi government 2.0, this budget was presented for FY 2023-24. However, he completed his speech in 60 minutes in the Modi government’s interim budget 2024. At the same time, the Finance Minister’s budget speech was 1 hour and 25 minutes in the financial year 2024-25.
Once again the eyes of the entire country are on the budget speech of Nirmala Sitharaman. She will present the budget for the eighth time. Also, it will also be seen to see what will come out of their box for the people of the country.
-IANS
FM/KR
