Nirmala Sitharaman to create history on July 23 with Union Budget

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Nirmala Sitharaman set for rare record as FM to present maximum Budgets

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, July 6: Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal on Saturday announced that the Budget session of parliament will begin from July 22. Union Budget will be presented in the Lok Sabha on July 23, added Meghwal.

The minister said that the Budget session will conclude on August 12. The Economic Survey will be presented in both the houses of parliament on July 22, added Meghwal.

This is going to be a short session of parliament. The government had earlier presented an interim Budget before the Lok Sabha elections.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to etch her name in the history book for her continuity in heading the Ministry of Finance. Before Sitharaman, only two Finance Ministers had served the full terms of the governments.

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But they had not returned as Finance Minister to present another Budget in the next government. Manmohan Singh (1991-1996) and Arun Jaitely (2014-19) had been the two Finance Ministers who had completed their full terms.

But neither Singh nor Jaitely had presented the Budget of the next government. Singh in his maiden Budget in 1991 had launched onto the path of ‘New Economy’ by phasing out the ‘Inspector Raj’.

Lately, Jaitely was the Finance Minister during the first tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre. In the last two years of his tenure, he had briefly been indisposed which necessitated Union Minister Piyush Goyal to step in with additional charge of the Finance Ministry.

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Sithraman became the Finance Minister after Modi-led NDA came to power in 2019 again. She served the full term, and retained her portfolio after the Modi-led NDA formed the government at the Centre for the third term.

Before Singh, no Finance Minister had completed a full five years term in the office. P Chidambaram had also been the Finance Minister from May, 2004 to November 2008. But the portfolio was briefly taken by then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and late Pranab Mukherjee serving as the Finance Minister in the last year of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

The portfolio of the Ministry of Finance had briefly been held by former prime ministers – Jawahar Lal Nehru (August, 1956, and February-March, 1958), Indira Gandhi (July 1969 to June, 1970), Rajiv Gandhi (January-July, 1987), and Manmohan Singh (November, 2008 to January, 2009).

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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