Nirmala Sitharaman to make history today with her 8th consecutive Union Budget

When Nirmala Sitharaman rises in Parliament today to present the Union Budget for 2025–26, she won’t just be outlining the government's fiscal roadmap—she’ll be making history. This marks her eighth consecutive budget presentation, surpassing all predecessors in India’s history for back-to-back budgets. The moment also stands as a testament to her tenure as the first full-time woman Finance Minister, a role she took on in 2019 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured his second term.

With this budget—the first under the Modi 3.0 government—Sitharaman moves closer to the all-time record of ten Union Budgets held by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Desai’s record was set across two separate tenures, with six budgets presented between 1959 and 1964 during his time as Finance Minister, and four more from 1967 to 1969. Sitharaman, however, is scripting her legacy through an unbroken streak since 2019, including the interim budget of February 2024.

She now stands alongside a distinguished league of finance ministers who have shaped India’s fiscal landscape over the decades. P. Chidambaram delivered nine budgets during his multiple terms, while Pranab Mukherjee presented eight. Manmohan Singh, during his transformative tenure as Finance Minister in the early 1990s, presented five budgets that played a pivotal role in liberalizing the Indian economy.

Beyond setting records for the number of consecutive budgets, Sitharaman also holds another unique distinction—the longest budget speech in India’s history. In 2020, she spoke for two hours and forty minutes before health concerns prompted her to cut the speech short, leaving two pages unread. This contrasts sharply with the shortest budget speech delivered in 1977 by Hirubhai Mulljibhai Patel, who wrapped up the interim budget in just 800 words.

The evolution of the Union Budget presentation itself mirrors the changing dynamics of Indian governance. Until 1999, budgets were traditionally presented at 5 pm—a colonial hangover designed to coincide with business hours in London.

This practice was discontinued by then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who shifted the budget presentation to 11 am during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Another significant reform came in 2017 when the date of the budget presentation was advanced from the last day of February to February 1. This change ensured that the parliamentary approval process could be completed by the end of March, allowing for seamless implementation from April 1, the start of the new fiscal year.