The Hindu Business Line : For him, it’s Budget at short notice again

Debut: A file photo dated February 27, 1982 shows Mr Pranab Mukherjee perusing the Budget papers prior to the presentation in Parliament. - The Hindu Archives

Our Bureau

New Delhi, May 23 The newly appointed Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has been there before. But not even he has done it all, because when reforms began in 1991, Mr Mukherjee was out in the political cold.

Having not made a secret of his prime ministerial ambitions in 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi became PM, Mr Mukherjee had more or less been shown the door. In 1991, when the time came to choose a new PM – Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated by the LTTE a few weeks earlier – the Congress Working Committee had asked Mr Mukherjee to go and request Ms Sonia Gandhi to become PM. That memory still rankles sometimes.

Mr Mukherjee was brought back into the Government in 1993 by P.V. Narasimha Rao, who became the Prime Minister after Ms Sonia Gandhi’s first refusal in 1991. He served as External Affairs Minister until 1996 when the Congress was once again voted out of power. He came back into the Cabinet in 2004, first as Defence Minister and was later shifted to External Affairs in 2006.

He has found the job too tiring and has been appointed Finance Minister. There are other reasons as well for his appointment.

This is the second time Mr Mukherjee has been elected to the Lok Sabha. Until 2004 he had always been in the Rajya Sabha. He started serving the Government in 1973 and became a deputy minister, and thereby hangs a tale. It seems he had gone to attend a swearing-in ceremony and was hastily asked to take oath when the person originally selected refused to take the oath, saying it was not an auspicious day.

Mr Mukherjee was appointed Finance Minister in 1982. The early years were not free from controversies. In 1983, he gave the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI), which went belly-up in 1991, a banking licence against the RBI’s advice and opposition from some quarters. The then RBI Governor, a little-known economist called Dr Manmohan Singh, was over-ruled by Mr Mukherjee.

In 1983, Mr Mukherjee decided to invite NRI investment. In a recent article he justified the decision saying that NRIs had about $15-20 billion and it would be a great thing if they could invest a few hundred million in India. In the event, the initiative backfired when the first NRI foray led to an attempt to take over Escorts and DCM. Rajiv Gandhi, as an MP, opposed the attempt, and that was that.

In 1982, Mr Mukherjee wrote recently, when he rose to present the budget he was accused of having leaked it to the IMF. There was a furore, and Indira Gandhi looked most angry. But the next day, Mr Mukherjee replied in the House that the MP who had accused him was holding the previous year’s papers in his hand.

This is not the first time he will have to present a budget at short notice. Recently he wrote in a newspaper that “When Indiraji told me that she was appointing me as the Finance Minister, she also posed a question: “Will you be able to present the Budget on the scheduled day, in such a short time?”

Mr Mukherjee’s first budget speech lasted 35 minutes. Will he keep it as short this time as well?

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For him, it’s Budget at short notice again