Explain how UPA govt delayed budget, EC asks Cabinet Secy

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

The Election Commission of India has written to Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha asking him to explain the procedure used by the previous central government under the United Progressive Alliance to delay tabling the union Budget in 2012, when dates of assembly elections clashed with the Budget Session.

The election watchdog has also asked for details of procedure involved in drafting and presenting the budget.

The bureaucrat has until Friday morning to respond.

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The central government has announced that it would table the Budget on February 1, but said it would not make announcements for the states that are headed to assembly elections next month. Opposition parties had objected to holding the Budget Session before elections, arguing that it would give the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party an unfair advantage.   

On January 10, the central government responded to Opposition’s objections saying that the decision to advance the Budget Session wad taken for a purpose. 

The central government is learnt to have described the Union Budget as an “annual constitutional exercise covering the entire country” and not just a few states. It also said that holding the Budget Session early would ensure that it was made effective from April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal.

Assembly elections will be held in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur —  the same states that voted in 2012 — from next month, with Punjab and Goa going first on February 4.

In 2012, the UPA government under former prime Minister Manmohan Singh had put off Budget Session to March 16  when the Opposition objected to the original date, February 28.