Nirmala Sitharaman cuts short her budget speech but it’s still India’s longest ever

Speaking for a record 2 hour 40 minutes, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman prematurely ended her budget speech citing health reasons.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the Union Budget 2020 | Screengrab from PIB video

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Saturday cut short her Budget speech as she felt unwell after speaking for a record 160 minutes in Lok Sabha. However, she still managed to set the record for the longest Budget speech by any finance minister.

Sitharaman had two pages of her Budget speech left when she appeared uneasy and was seen wiping sweat from her forehead.

She was offered candies by her ministerial colleagues, but when that did not help, she opted to discontinue and asked Speaker Om Birla to consider the remaining part of her speech as read.

She broke her own record of 2 hours and 17 minutes, which she set in her maiden Budget speech in July 2019.

Before her, former Prime Minister and former finance minister Manmohan Singh held the record for the longest budget speech from 1991 when he introduced reforms of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation.

Finance ministers Moraji Desai and Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet delivered the shortest budget speeches.

Duration of budget speeches by former finance ministers | Infograph by Arindam Mukherjee | ThePrint

(With inputs from PTI)