Kerala: Longest budget gets Congress nod

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister Thomas Isaac has set a new record of having presented the lengthiest budget in terms of time beating the earlier “record holder” by a margin of three minutes. While former Chief Minister Mr. Oommen Chandy held the record with a time of two hours and fifty-four minutes for presenting the budget of the previous UDF government earlier this year, Mr. Isaac who presented the revised budget on Friday took two hours and fifty-seven minutes.

While the presentation of the budget has often been marked by jeers by opposition members, on Friday the opposition UDF MLAs seemed to be quite receptive even when adverse remarks were made against the previous government during the budget presentation. “This was the fourth policy presentation by the LDF government and there was nothing new even to ridicule,” said Congress MLA V D Satheesan.

“The contents of the Governor’s policy address, reply by Chief Minister Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan to the discussion on the Governor’s address, presentation of White Paper by the government were all the same and hence we even did not feel like ridiculing. Moreover, the budget was also a refurbishment of what the previous UDF government presented,” said Mr. Satheesan. Even as the Opposition sat quite composed, the ruling front MLAs hailed many announcements by banging on their desks.