Nirmala Sitharaman eyes history as FM with ninth Union Budget

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to create sort of history by presenting her ninth consecutive Union Budget and also the longest-serving female Cabinet Minister in the Narendra Modi government, which is in its third term now.

Sitharaman will present the annual budget on February 1 which is a Sunday and stock markets are also scheduled to operate on the day, which according to sources in the government, this budget is likely to be a transformational one likely to replicate the 1991 economic policy shift change done by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh under the leadership of P V Narasimha Rao as PM.

The budget session is, however, likely to witness more sparks this time, which will come in the background of the BJP’s attempts to make deeper inroads in poll-bound West Bengal, where a political storm has already erupted with raids by the Enforcement Directorate in the office of a political consultant of the TMC.

The Opposition too is waiting with bated breath as the Election Commission has announced a revised voter data as part of the SIR exercise, where electorate figures in the States of Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, and West Bengal have come down. Opposition has alleged that EC has deliberately struck down the voters to suit the voting pattern of the BJP. 

The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs on Friday decided that the Budget session of Parliament will commence on January 28 with the address by President Droupadi Murmu to the joint sitting of Parliament and the Union Budget to be tabled on February 1.

The two Houses will not meet on January 29 due to the Beating Retreat ceremony. Parliament will sit on January 30 when the Economic Survey is likely to be tabled. On January 31, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will not meet.

After discussions on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address and Union Budget, Parliament will adjourn for a near month-long recess on February 13. Parliament will reconvene on March 9, and the session will conclude on April 2, a Thursday. The recess in the Budget session helps department-related standing committees to examine demands for grants of various Union ministries and departments.

Sitharaman had earlier presented the Union Budget for 2025 on a Saturday, while Jaitley delivered the Budgets for 2015 and 2016 on February 28, both of which also fell on Saturdays.

This will also be the 88th Budget since Independence. Since 2017, the government has followed the practice of presenting the Budget at 11 am on February 1, after advancing it from the earlier convention of February 28. This change was introduced during the tenure of former finance minister late Arun Jaitley to enable quicker implementation of budgetary measures from the start of the new financial year.

Both the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange have indicated to the government to keep equity markets open on the Budget Day. Market analysts said in the past, stock exchanges have operated on non-trading days when the Union Budget was presented on a weekend or a public holiday.