Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered her sixth consecutive budget speech, marking it as her shortest-ever at a mere 56 minutes. Sitharaman, adorned in a turquoise Kantha silk saree, received accolades from the treasury benches throughout her address, with the loudest cheers following her mention of the government's full budget presentation in July.
Opposition members attentively listened to Sitharaman's speech, though dissenting voices arose during her reference to her government's return to power after the Lok Sabha elections. Before her speech, BJP members chanted slogans as Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the Lok Sabha chamber.
This 56-minute duration stands in stark contrast to Sitharaman's record of delivering the longest budget speech at two hours and forty minutes in 2020. In 2019, her inaugural budget speech lasted for two hours and 17 minutes, followed by one hour and 50 minutes in 2021, 92 minutes in 2022, and 87 minutes in 2023.
Unlike previous occasions, Sitharaman's budget speech omitted references to Tamil poets and thinkers. Instead, she cited Prime Minister Modi eight times and quoted from his speeches. The public galleries showed sparse attendance, with only a few Rajya Sabha members in Gallery 2, and Sitharaman's relatives in the first row of Gallery 3.
Before presenting the budget, Sitharaman, along with Ministers of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat Karad, met with President Droupadi Murmu, who extended best wishes and offered curd and sugar as a traditional gesture.
In her speech, Sitharaman introduced new expansions for FDI and GDP, interpreting FDI as "First, Develop India" and GDP as "Governance, Development, and Performance." The finance minister maintained the tradition of using a 'bahi-khata' with the national emblem on a tablet computer instead of the traditional budget briefcase.
JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan 'Lalan' Singh, recently rejoining the NDA, applauded Sitharaman's budget speech, and the Prime Minister personally congratulated her at its conclusion. Various ministers also extended their congratulations to Sitharaman after her succinct presentation.
