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Budget from visitors' gallery: 'Modi' chant & the handshake that mattered

MPs chanted 'Modi-Modi' for nearly 90 seconds when Goyal announced a tax rebate for people earning less than Rs 5,00,000 annually

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal with MoS Finance minister Shiv Pratap Shukla  arrives in the Parliament to present the interim Budget 2019-20
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Finance Minister Piyush Goyal with MoS Finance minister Shiv Pratap Shukla arrives in the Parliament to present the interim Budget 2019-20

Aditi Phadnis
At 11:05 am, Congress MP Rajiv Satav sidled into the House. He whispered something to colleague Sushmita Deb and handed her a handful of laser-printed placards. One set said: ‘How’s the jobs!’ Another simply said: ‘15 lakh?’ These placards were raised every time Finance Minister Piyush Goel mentioned the word ‘jobs’ in his interim Budget speech.

As disturbances go, Goyal’s speech was relatively interruption-free, except for bursts of maniacal and hysterical laughter for apparently no reason, as Trinamool Congress MPs Kalyan Banerji and Idris Ali advised him periodically to “drink water” (paani  peejiye). Actually, it was the Treasury benches that held