The absence of an ailing Arun Jaitley, who presented the last five Budgets of the Modi cabinet, was palpable when his protege finance minister Piyush Goyal presented the Budget 2019-20 on Friday. Goyal faced several disruptions and drank water several times during his two-hour-long address. Jaitley, who is in the United States attending to his failing health, arranged for a video-conference from his hospital bed with reporters who cover the finance ministry.
PM Modi, seated in a mint kurta thumped in the treasury benches during Goyal's budget speech.
Opposition members carried banners that read, "How's the jobs?" The banners were a reference to the NSSO report which revealed that unemployment was on a 42-year high at 6.1%.
From the treasury benches, union minister Prakash Javadekar, General VK Singh, and Ram Vilas Paswan jotted down notes. In Opposition benches, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had taken up a seat in the front benches due to mother Sonia Gandhi's absence. He moved back to his seat on the second row. Union minister Ramdas Athawale was heard asking Gandhi to pay more attention to the speech.
TMC MPs Idris Ali and Kalyan Banerjee, as well as Congress MPs Sushmita Dev and Sunil Jakhar interjected the speech several times. Banerjee's uncharacteristic hooting invited him a remark from the finance minister reminding him of PM Modi's earlier remark from Mahabharata in the floor of the House. Goyal was making a reference to Modi's 'Surpanakha' remark to Congress MP Renuka Chowdhary that invited a lot of ire from the Opposition. AIADMK's P Venugopal and JDU's HD Devegowda were seen dozing off during the speech.
Later, when Goyal was speaking about the benefits for women in the Budget, union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi felt uneasy, and was assisted by colleagues with medicines.
