Budget 2020: Find out who gave the longest Budget speech so far
New Delhi, Feb 01: The Union Budget for 2020-21 will be presented on today, February 1. Over the years, the budget speeches by the finance ministers have assumed a lot of importance. As it would be quite interesting to see how long she will talk this time, let us have a look at the longest speech so far:
The first budget speech of independent India, presented by R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, was only 39 paragraphs long. After that, budget speeches kept getting longer.
Nirmala Sitharaman, 2020
Finance
Minister
Nirmala
Sitharaman
broke
her
own
recond
by
delivering
the
longest
budget
speeches
comprising
18,650
words,
peppered
with
Kashmiri
couplets.
Nirmala
Sitharaman,
2019
In
the
year
2019,
Finance
Minister
Nirmala
Sitharaman
delivered
the
longest
budget
speeches,
peppered
with
Urdu,
Hindi
and
Tamil
couplets.
Sitharaman's
speech
clocked
2
hours
and
17
minutes.
She
beat
former
Finance
Minister
Jaswant
Singh's
speech
by
two
minutes.
When Finance ministers weaved poems to bring life to the Budget sessions
Arun Jaitley in his fifth budget speech in 2018 was about 109 minutes comprising 18,604 words. His budget speech in 2017 was 110 minutes long. His second budget speech in 2015 exceeded two hours.
Jaswant
Singh,
2003
Jaswant
Singh's
budget
speech
clocked
2
hours
and
13
minutes
in
the
year
2003.
Arun
Jaitley,
2014
Finance
Minister
Arun
Jaitley
hold
the
distinction
for
having
the
most
number
of
paragraphs
in
his
budget
speech.
In
his
first
budget
speech
presented
in
2014,
Jaitley
readout
253
paragraphs
and
his
speech
lasted
2
hours
and
10
minutes
which
is
excluding
a
four-minute
break
that
he
took
for
his
health
reasons.
Pranab
Mukherjee
Pranab
Mukherjee
who
was
also
India's
President
later,
name
comes
after
Arun
Jaitley
in
terms
of
paragraphs
and
words.
He
had
an
average
of
202
paragraphs
for
his
budget
speeches.
His
average
jumped
because
of
the
220
paragraphs
seen
in
2012,
which
was
also
his
last
budget
speech.
Mukherjee
presented
the
budget
eight
times.
P
Chidambaram
Former
Finance
Minister
P
Chidambaram
is
third
on
the
list
and
has
presented
the
budget
a
total
of
nine
times.
His
speeches
consisted
of
a
total
of
173
paragraphs
on
an
average.
Chidambaram
also
stands
at
the
second
spot
after
Morarji
R.
Desai
in
terms
of
the
number
of
Budgets
presented
by
any
Finance
Minister.
Explained: What to expect from Budget 2020
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh's landmark 1991 Budget speech was the longest in terms of words at 18,650.