What do a district secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), a former investment banker, and a life-long Congress politician who joined the BJP only in 2020 have in common?
They are all first-time finance ministers!
K N Balagopal (CPM) is Kerala’s new finance minister. Palanivel Thiagarajan will run the finance department in Tamil Nadu. And Ajanta Neog, as Assam’s finance minister, is the first woman to have ever got the job in the state. None has ever been a finance minister before.
But all of them have very strong opinions on how finances of their states should be