Union Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to break Morarji Desai's THIS record

Next month, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament, she will set a new record. Sitharaman will become the first Finance Minister in the country's history to deliver seven consecutive Union Budgets.

By achieving this milestone, Sitharaman will surpass the record held by Morarji Desai, who presented six consecutive budgets as the country's Finance Minister about six decades ago.

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Since July 2019, when she became the country's first full-time woman Finance Minister, Sitharaman has presented five complete budgets and one interim budget, in February this year. She has already surpassed the five-budget streak of her predecessors, including Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, and she has also matched Morarji Desai's record of presenting six budgets in a row.

According to sources, Sitharaman, who took charge as the country's Finance Minister for the second term earlier this week, is likely to table the full Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament on July 22. This will also be the first full budget of the newly-inducted third consecutive union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Morarji Desai, who served as the country's Finance Minister, tabled five full budgets and one interim budget from 1959 to 1964. Desai presented 10 budgets, the highest by any Finance Minister of India.

Desai became the fourth Prime Minister of India between March 24, 1977, and July 28, 1979.

Before Sitharaman, the late Arun Jaitley presented five consecutive budgets from 2014-15 to 2018-19. On February 1, 2019, Piyush Goyal, now the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, presented the interim budget for the fiscal year 2019-20.

After the 2019 general elections, Nirmala Sitharaman became the Finance Minister, becoming the second woman to present the budget after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who tabled the budget for the financial year 1970-71.