Not satisfied with Centre’s reply on the advancement of Union Budget, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has sought fresh details, including the procedure followed by the erstwhile UPA Government to delay the presentation of the Budget in 2012, from the Cabinet Secretariat.
According to sources, the EC has written another letter to the Cabinet Secretariat on Wednesday, asking for a response by Friday morning. The Commission has also sought details on the process involved in preparing and presenting the Union Budget.
On January 10, the Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha had replied to the Commission on the opposition complaint against presenting the Union Budget before Assembly elections, defending its decision to advance the budget session for the purpose. The Cabinet Secretary is learnt to have described the Union Budget as an annual constitutional exercise covering the entire country and not just a few States, an apparent rebuttal of the opposition charge that the budget will be used to woo voters in the poll-bound States. It had also said that the advancing of budget presentation was necessary as it would ensure that all budgetary provisions are allocated to different sectors from April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal.
The Union Budget is usually presented around last week of February and, as a result, the approval of the budget spills over to the next financial year, delaying the start of new programmes. The Budget session has already been convened from January 31 when the President will address the joint sitting of the two Houses. The Union Budget and the Economic Survey are slated to be presented the next day.
The Commission had asked the Cabinet Secretariat to respond to a representation by opposition parties urging the poll panel to make the Government postpone the budget till assembly polls are over. In their petition, the Opposition parties led by Congress have demanded the Commission to direct the Centre to postpone the presentation of union budget on February 1 in view of assembly polls in five states.
The opposition parties said that when the opposition had objected in 2012 during the Assembly polls to Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, the then UPA government had accepted their stand and postponed presentation of the Union Budget from February 28 to March 16. The opposition parties had written to the President and the Commission objecting to the presentation of the Union Budget on February 1 ahead of the Assembly elections in five states and demanded that the government be asked to defer the annual exercise.