But there is a problem about the bogey being raised now against the Budget’s timing. Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Finance Minister Arun Jaitley thought up the idea of advancing the budget from end-February to 1 February after the polls were announced to the Assemblies of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur on Wednesday.
The government has been talking about it from 21 September last year. Economists have been raving about the advantages that the country would reap from an early budget.
Where have the Opposition leaders been all this while? Were they too busy attacking the government’s “surgical strikes” first on Pakistan and then on black money to find that Jaitley’s Budget would come up around the time as state elections?
