Following Opposition complaint, the poll panel has sought the Centre's response on their objection to presenting the budget on February 1 before the Assembly polls to five states.
According to officials, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi has written to cabinet secretary P K Sinha who is likely to consult the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry before framing his response on the government's plans to advance the budget presentation to February 1.
This move from the ECI comes just a day after a delegation of the opposition parties met the election commissioners. Thereafter, the Commission had on Friday forwarded the letter of the opposition parties, including Congress, TMC, BSP and SP, asking the government to postpone the presentation of the budget to at least till March 8, when the last of the votes will be cast for the state polls.
The EC has asked the Cabinet Secretary to respond by January 10 and officials claimed that this has been done as per normal procedure.
Government has been insisting that this has been done keeping in mind all the rules and norms. Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday termed the demand to defer the Budget Session as anti-people. He said the Union Budget is for the country and would not be state specific.
“No budget means no development, no welfare. Is this what you want? And no support to poor people, no support to farmers, is that what your wish is? Why are you opposing? Budget is budget," the union minister had said.
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs had recently recommended that the Budget session will commence on January 31 and the Union Budget will be presented on February 1 so that the new provisions come into force from April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended the move asking why the opposition parties are afraid of it when they have claimed that demonetisation is an unpopular decision.