The Hindu : No poetry, banter, only reams of paper

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 01, 2002

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National

No poetry, banter, only reams of paper

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 28. But for some tense moments provided by the aggressive `Ram bhakts' in Parliament _ they threatened to stall the presentation of the budget _ the Finance Minister's exercise was so dull that even the excitement of having re-entered the Lok Sabha could not prevent the former Prime Minister, Deve Gowda, from taking some cat-naps.

Mr. Gowda, Jyotiraditya Scindia and other newly- elected MPs were earlier given a thumping welcome.

There was no poetry, no banter, no jokes, just reams and reams of dry and dull prose that the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, waded through. It was a good 15 minutes past 11 a.m. that Mr. Sinha rose in his grey ``bandh gala'' suit to deliver what the country had been waiting for with bated breath. But nothing happened, no sparks flew, a few times a mild thumping of desks, some derisive laughter, and mostly a feeling that the worst was expected and it had happened.

For one, the live telecast of the budget presentation has put an end to the push and shove and the excitement in the galleries _ the diplomat's gallery was occupied by just six persons, the visitors' galleries had ample space left after accommodating the day's guests, and even the press gallery had more than breathing space.

The empty back row benches in the Lok Sabha testified to many MPs having stayed back in their comfortable bungalows to watch the budget presentation on the small screen. No need to rush to Parliament which has now become a security fortress. And some of those who had come in, decided to quietly slip away well before Mr. Sinha tried to get a grip over the various figures he was juggling with to keep down the runaway fiscal deficit. The Union Minister of Sports, Uma Bharti, very discreetly first walked away to sit on a back bench before walking out. Another BJP MP, Sahib Singh Verma, also followed suit. And even from the Opposition side there was a regular trickle of MPs leaving before Mr. Sinha had finished.

The mild thumping of desks that followed the expected announcement of dismantling the administered price mechanism in the oil sector _ petrol and diesel, were expected to become cheaper _ was followed by equally mild protests when Mr. Sinha disclosed that this would lead to an increase in the price of cooking gas and kerosene. But perhaps the strongest reaction was to his cuts in fertilizer subsidies which brought forth spontaneous shouts of ``shame, shame.'' Not one to be cowed down, a little while later Mr. Sinha himself mocked them with ``shame, shame'' after he announced lower interest rates on central loans to States.

Only at one point when the irrepressible Rashtriya Janata Dal MP, Raghuvansh Prasad, got up to strongly protest against lack of any special package for Bihar which had been promised assistance after the State was bifurcated, was there a feeling that tempers might get out of hand and mar the serious occasion. Some MPs from the Treasury Benches shouted that this was not the Bihar budget, and for a few minutes there were some nasty verbal exchanges.

For some strange reason MPs virtually laughed at Mr. Sinha when he said he was lowering duties for testing equipment used by diabetics, prompting him to say he was not a diabetic. Perhaps the MPs were laughing because a cheaper glucometer would not improve the failing health of the economy.

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