Language being the veteran lawyer’s forte, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley raced through the Opposition’s verbal blows and switched seamlessly from English to Hindi whenever the populist aspects of the political economy needed to be clearly defined for the provincials.
In his sober grey tunic and dark jacket, the Finance Minister set a sombre tone for his last full Budget, skipping the poetic flourishes preferred by his predecessors. The presentation was largely a tepid affair. Only Shatrughan Sinha, in dark shades, provided a show-stopper moment with his swagger and fashionably late arrival.
The Lok Sabha missed its usual Budget Day sideshow of camaraderie and laughter as the equation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi appeared strained. Modi rarely smiled, even when he thumped his approval of the healthcare plan and sops for the farm sector; Sonia sat stiffly through the proceedings.
A few light moments
Yet, a few legislators made sure they extracted some fun during the almost two-hour-long Budget speech, even if it was at their own expense.
Guffaws and chants of “what’s in it for us” rose when Jaitley announced revisions in emoluments for the President, Vice-President and the Governors. The Finance Minister halted for a few seconds, and smiled as he carried on, saying: “There has been a public debate with regard to the emoluments paid to Members of Parliament. Present practice allows the recipients to fix their own emoluments, which invites criticism.”
The professorial Saugata Roy of the Trinamool Congress was at the forefront of the Opposition’s intermittent disruptions, baiting the Finance Minister loudly during his policy pronouncements on agriculture and job creation.
“Farmers have not stopped committing suicide, Mr Jaitley,” the elderly MP shouted when the Finance Minister was asserting that the government’s emphasis was on generating higher incomes for farmers.
Congress MP from Rohtak Deepender Hooda led his party’s backbenchers, while Prof Roy chipped in during Jaitley’s claims on job creation. “Let all the young people sell pakoras ,” he quipped, alluding to Modi’s comments last fortnight.
Barring these moments of sparkle, the overall ambience in the Lower House remained subdued. The Opposition seemed to pull its punches and the treasury benches were a column of disciplined soldiers under the Prime Minister’s command.
The routine bonhomie and humour seemed to have evaporated from the annual ritual of the Union Budget this time around.