*Dressed in light blue shirt and deep-blue Nehru jacket, FM Arun Jaitley walked in Lok Sabha with seven minutes to spare for his speech to start 11 am. Unlike last time, his wife and daughter were not present in visitors gallery, instead his sister Madhu Bharghava and neice Punita were present.
*Before his speech he spoke to opposition benches where Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were seated. He later went on to wear a lapel mike, thus making it clear that he would like to sit during his speech. Being a diabetic, Jaitley had presented his last budget seated. Out of his 100 minutes budget speech, Finance minister was seated for nearly 70 minutes.
*Before Jaitley started his speech there was a clamour to occupy seat in the row behind him. The second reserved for seven members was occupied by 10 Cabinet ministers and MPs, who apparently wanted to be seen in the TV telecast. Those who squeezed them in row behind Jaitley were Shanta Kumar, Kalraj Mishra, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, RadhaMohan Singh, Mahesh Sharma, Jual Oram, Narendra Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Venkiah Naidu.
*In between budget speech, Jaitley took sips from glass of water and what looked like either juice or soup.
*If his last budget was devoid of any poetic device, this time he included a Sanskrit shloka and a two lines stanza to hit out at UPA. Kuch to phool khilaye humne, aur kuch phool khilane hai Mushkil yeh hai bag me ab tak, kaante kai purane hai (We have blossomed some flowers and have to grow many more. But we are facing difficulty with some legacies)"
*Shloka he recited at the end of his speech: Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah Sarve SantuNir-Aamayaah Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih (May All Be Happy May All Be Free From Illness May All See What is Beneficial May No One Suffer)
*Before presenting his outlay for MNREGA, Jaitley took a jibe at Khgarge saying he must be happy he has allotted so much. As Kharge rose to respond, some BJP members tried to shout him down, prompting him to retort that he was only responding to Jaitley's remarks.
*Words like 'ease of doing business', 'investment' several times. Ease of business was used 10 times, 'investment' was used 60 times, as against 34 last year, while 'growth' was spoken 27 times in comparison to 31 in July 2014.