Who presented the highest number of union budgets?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is gearing up to present her second budget on February 1, 2020, under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. Sitharaman is the second woman in independent India to present a budget.

This is the second full-time budget of the Modi government after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, where the NDA won with a majority. The budget comes at a time when the Indian economy is under stress and the Finance Ministry is expected to cut personal tax to strengthen the economy and provide sops to various sectors including MSMEs, startups and agriculture.

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In independent India, several finance ministers and prime ministers have presented the union budget multiple times. However, the finance minister who has presented the highest number of budgets is Morarji Desai. He has presented 10 union budgets so far.

Desai presented the budget every year from 1959 to 1963. His second spree was from 1967 to 1969. Apart from this, he presented the interim budget for 1962-63 and 1967-68.

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Former finance minister P Chidambaram has presented the budget nine times, while Pranab Mukherjee has given the budget eight times. Finance ministers Yashwant Sinha, Y B Chavan and C D Deshmukh have presented seven budgets each in the past.