NEW DELHI: Parliament’s budget session is set to start from January 31, a day before the budget is likely to be presented, even as the Election Commission sought the Centre’s response to Opposition parties’ objection to the budget being presented days before Assembly polls are slated in five states.
President Pranab Mukherjee has summoned the Rajya Sabha to meet on January 31, an official notification said. A similar notification is also expected from the Lok Sabha secretariat.
According to officials, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi has sought a response from Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha by Tuesday. Sinha is likely to consult the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs on the government’s plans to advance the budget presentation to February 1.
The move comes just a day after a delegation of Opposition parties met the poll panel, saying the advancement of the budget would tilt the balance in the government’s favour because it could woo voters with sops.
The commission on Friday forwarded to the Centre the letters it had received from the Congress, Trinamool Congress, BSP and the SP asking the government to postpone the budget to at least till March 8, when the last phase of voting will be over.
On Friday Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu termed the demand to defer the budget as anti-people, saying the Union budget was for the whole country. “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 minister said.
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs recently recommended that the budget session commence on January 31 and the budget be presented on February 1 so that the new provisions can take effect from April 1, when the new fiscal begins.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had defended the move, asking why the Opposition parties were afraid of the budget when they claimed that demonetisation was an unpopular decision.
While the session will begin with the President’s address to the joint sitting of the two Houses, the same day the economic survey will be tabled. The practice of presenting a separate railway budget is being scrapped from this year. The railway estimates will now be part of the Union budget.