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Inside the Lok Sabha, the atmosphere is tenser than in previous Budgets. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) front bench sits stone-faced, grandly accepting the almost obsequious greetings of a Congress leadership desperate to see the session go off well. There are fewer spots of colour, too, though Shatrughan Sinha doesn’t disappoint, flamboyant in silk and wearing opaque sunglasses behind which he can no doubt close his eyes without anyone noticing.
Unlike his predecessor, Chidambaram doesn’t banter with the House. If interrupted, he holds up a stern hand in the direction of the offending MP, and keeps going. He is interrupted much less than Pranab Mukherjee was — except when he names certain states that would benefit from a new roads scheme, and everyone gets up to ask “why not mine, too”. Post-MPLADS, members care less for constituency-specific grants and more for those that help their state.
MPs’ choice to clap, or bang their desk, is not always that easily explained. Several initiatives get a warm welcome from a single, random backbencher. Okay, Jyotiraditya Scindia, now in the power ministry, will applaud something to do with the postal service, his old stamping ground. But why is that one MP clapping for something to do with dredging inland waterways? Does he own a dredging company? Or does he just really, really care about inland waterways?
Some things unite the MPs, though. There is an audible groan when taxes are raised on SUVs. This wouldn’t surprise anyone who’d had to walk through the parking lot on the way in. On the other hand, there is applause across party lines when the decision to raise the value exemption on jewellery in international hand baggage is announced. Draw your own conclusions. When the tax on phones is announced, the media gallery looks aghast — and then puzzled when the exemption on phones costing less than Rs 2,000 is revealed. Blackberry-toting journalists look doubtful phones so cheap even exist.
Some sit unmoving throughout, of course, the prime minister being first among equals in that respect. Sonia Gandhi nods every now and then — and keeps on clapping for direct cash transfers long after her party has stopped — but the heir-apparent of the Congress, far to the back of the treasury benches, looks incredibly bored and sleepy. He even gets up at one point to stretch his legs and lounges in a doorway for a bit.
The only people who look well-informed and awake throughout are the senior bureaucrats, sharp in dark suits in their gallery to the Speaker’s right. They pass copies of the Budget documents around while MPs watch them enviously. Raghuram Rajan, the chief economic advisor, winces at one or two provisions and leaves after an hour.
Later, Arun Jaitley would call the Budget speech “verbose”; it definitely took too long for most of the MPs. One or two had their heads down. Perhaps it wasn’t the time alone; something about this Budget managed to leach a lot of the earlier energy out of the air. Hopefully it doesn’t do the same to the economy.
