Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said her two hour plus budget speech days ago was inevitable since every aspect of the economy warranted a careful response and expressed regret for putting people to inconvenience.
The minister, when asked if such a lenghty budget speech was warranted -which drove her to a point of exhaustion- something which was not seen in the past few decades, said it was needed.
“It was needed. Definitely it was needed. I would have completed reading out the remaining portion after drinking water,” she said addressing a press conference.
A Kashmiri verse, quotes from Tamil poets and references to Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation peppered Sitharaman’s 160- minute long marathon budget speech on February 1 which got cut short at the fag end after she felt unwell.
Pointing to elaborate pre-budget consultations with stakeholders and efforts to fulfill the aspirations of every sector, she said she had a need to speak for such a duration and it became “inevitable.”
After around 150 minutes, Sitharaman appeared tired and sipped water at least thrice before cutting short her speech in Parliament.In between when a staff member went to get a glass of water, Sitharaman took a candy that was offered by Gadkari.
Ministerial colleague Harsimrat Kaur Badal also came up to the finance minister and offered her a candy. Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah were also seen talking to her.
