Budget speech had some lighter moments

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Members of Parliament heard in rapt attention Finance Minister P Chidambaram reading out his Budget speech except for a brief interruption towards the end, unlike the Railway Budget which was interrupted all through by the agitated NDA opposition shouting slogans trooping into the well of the House on Monday on the Bofors issue.

xxxxx As Mr Chidambaram was coming to the end of his Budget speech,BJP Parliamentary Party Leader V.K.Malhotra broke the silence of the House by asking Mr Chidamabaram,"aam admi ka kya hua(what happend to the common man),prompting other BJP members to raise the matter.Shiv Sena member Anant Geete took up the thread from Mr Malhotra trying to make the point that the Budget contained no provisions for the common man. This provoked Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to say that the intervention during the Budget speech was "extremely unfortunate" and expunging Mr Geete's remark.

xxxxx Many MPs in the House and Rajya Sabha members sitting in the visitors' gallery were seen taking notes from Mr Chidambaram's speech.

xxxxx Some MPs in the House and among the Rajya Sabha members in the visitors gallery were seen dozing off as Mr Chidambaram was reading out his Budget speech.

xxxxx Railway Minister Lalu Prasad left his seat in the Treasury Benches at the beginning of the Budget speech and shared the row with two MPs from Samajwadi Party and TDP all through the proceedings.

xxxxx The reading of the Budget speech was marked by frequent thumping of desks by ruling party members and those from the allies. Congress President Sonia Gandhi also joined occasionally in thumping the desk applauding the Finance Minster.

xxxxx The two hour long Budget speech was conspicuous by the absence of any poetry or Urdu couplets usually forming part of the Budget speeches earliler,except once when the Finance Minister quoted a few lines from the work of a Tamil poet.

xxxxx The Finance Minister's comment during his Budget speech that he had a good news for the dog lovers as duty on pet food for cats and dogs had been reduced from 30 to 20 per cent evoked a peal of laughter from the members provoking some of them to make witty remarks.

UNI