CM, many others lose patience, leave House
Odisha’s new Finance Minister Pradip Kumar Amat on Tuesday made history in reading out the State’s longest Budget Speech spanning three hours and fifteen minutes in the Assembly.
Soft-spoken Amat, a former Speaker of the Assembly, began reading out the speech at 5 pm. While he started with the 31 pages of Agriculture Budget, he had a tough time to complete the 61 pages of the General Budget. He ended his speech at 8.15 pm.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was sitting next to Amat, and many other Ministers and MlAs, however, apparently lost patience and went outside the House while Amat was on his marathon exercise. Amat had to take at least two glasses of water in course of his speech.
The Chief Minister only returned to the House towards the last of Amat’s speech as opposition Congress member Tara Prasad Bahinipati expressed his party’s protest against the former’s absence during the important occasion.
Threatening to boycott the Budget Speech if Patnaik did not remain present in the House, Bahinipati described the Chief Minister’s absence during the State Budget presentation as unfortunate and a disrespect to the House.
Amat, according to observers, surpassed the record of former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal who had given the longest speech in the history of State Assemblies in 2012.
Dhumal’s 85-page Budget Speech, interspersed with Hindi and Urdu couplets, had lasted two hours and twenty minutes. Amat, however, stuck to his prepared note without trying to go off the drab Budget text.