State Elections to Push Back Union Budget?

By Vijay Kumar

FIVE States, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur are to go to polls in the next couple of months with elections in Goa being the last to be finished by 3rd March 2012. Now, there is a code of conduct which prohibits the government from making announcements which can influence voters in any way or accord any undue benefit to the party in power.

Now can the Union Budget be presented on 29th February and the Railway Budget a few days earlier? Pundits say that the code of conduct will not apply to the Centre and they can go ahead with the budget.

There is no rule that the Union Budget should be presented on the last day of February; it is only a convention – which had been bypassed several times. So why should a Finance Minister who is also the trouble-shooter for the ruling party risk a budget without knowing how the political wind is blowing. So, in all probability, the Budget will be postponed. With this uncertainty, we are not sure when we should start our Budget Run up.

If the Budget is not allowed to influence the elections, the election results will certainly influence the budget.