Over the years, several finance ministers and prime ministers have presented the Union Budget multiple times. However, former Prime Minister Morarji Desai holds the record of presenting the most number of Union Budgets in the history of the nation — he presented 10 Union Budgets!
Desai presented the budget every year from 1959 to 1963. His second stint was from 1967 to 1969. Apart from this, he also presented the interim budget for 1962-63 and 1967-68.
Like last year, this year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on February 1. Sitharaman will be presenting the Union Budget for the fifth time in a row.
Sitharaman, who first presented a Budget in July 2019, is one of only two women who have ever presented the Budget. This year, Sitharaman will be presenting the 33rd budget.
Earlier, six finance ministers: Manmohan Singh (1991-1996), Yashwant Sinha (1998-2003), Jaswant Singh (2003-2004), P Chidambaram (1996-1998, 2004-2009, 2013-2014), Pranab Mukherjee (2009-2013), and Arun Jaitley (2014-2019) had presented 28 budgets.
Jaitley presented all the five budgets of the Modi government's first tenure but missed out on presenting the interim budget in February this year due to illness. Stand-in Finance Minister Piyush Goyal presented the interim budget on February 1, 2019, before the 2019 Lok Sabha Sabha election. The next three budgets — July 2019, February 2020 and February 2021 — were presented by Nirmala Sitharaman.
(Published 12 January 2023, 09:31 IST)
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