Budget 2024 | Nirmala Sitharaman delivers her shortest Budget speech
The HinduFinance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 presented her sixth consecutive Budget with a speech lasting 56 minutes, her shortest-ever. Union Budget 2024 | Follow live updates here The opposition members listened to Ms. Sitharaman's budget speech with rapt attention, barring some voices of disapproval to the Minister's reference to her government returning to power after the Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, BJP members raised slogans of Bharat Mata ki Jai, Jai Shri Ram, Jai Siya Ram as Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the Lok Sabha chamber and took his seat a few minutes before 11:00 a.m. At 56 minutes, it was Ms. Sitharaman's shortest budget speech. In 2019, as India's first full-time woman Finance Minister, Ms. Sitharaman's budget speech had lasted for two hours and 17 minutes. Ms. Sitharaman's budget speech found no mention of Tamil poets and thinkers unlike previous occasions, but she referred to Prime Minister Modi at least eight times and quoted from his speeches.