New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday (March 23) passed the 2023-24 Union budget in just 12 minutes, without any discussion on it. This happened at a time when parliament has been seeing repeated adjournments.
According to The Tribune, the Demands for Grants and Appropriation Bills was taken up after two adjournments, as the opposition continued to insist on a discussion on the allegations against the Adani group – of accounting fraud and stock manipulation – raised by Hindenburg Research in January. The BJP too has been disrupting parliament, insisting on an apology from Rahul Gandhi for his remarks made in the UK.
After two failed attempts to pass the Budget, it was finally done around 6 pm in just 12 minutes. Speaker Om Birla put the amendments suggested by the opposition to vote, and they were rejected by voice vote.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman then moved the demands for grants for 2023-24 and relevant Appropriation Bills. The Speaker, according to The Tribune, put the demands for grants of all ministries for voting. Opposition MPs were protesting and shouting slogans by this time, but the demands were passed anyway – with no discussion whatsoever on the grants to different ministries.
These Bills will now go to the Rajya Sabha – which can discuss but not modify them.
There still remains one formality pertaining to the Budget – parliament has to pass a Finance Bill, which contains tweaks Sitharaman had proposed to the tax policy.
Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram hit out at the government after the budget was passed, saying it is “the worst message from a parliamentary democracy is to approve a Budget without discussion”.
The worst message from a parliamentary democracy is to approve a Budget without discussion
Rs 45,03,097 crore will be raised and spent for the ‘people’ in 2023-24 without the people’s representatives offering their views on the Budget
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) March 24, 2023