BJP govt to present last budget of poll-bound Gujarat on March 3

The BJP government in Gujarat will on Thursday present its last budget for the state, which is set to go to polls in December.

The budget session of the Gujarat legislative Assembly will begin on Wednesday and the budget will be presented by Finance Minister Kanu Desai on Thursday, an official communication from the state Assembly stated.

The budget session of the state Assembly will start from March 2 and will continue till March 31, it said.

The last two budget sessions of the state government were held in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget session held in 2020 was cut short due to the viral outbreak and subsequent lockdown, while the session in 2021 was held amid the second wave of the pandemic.

After the 2021 budget session, many ministers and MLAs were infected by the virus.

This will be the BJP government's last budget before the Assembly elections scheduled to be held in December.

According to government sources, it is likely to be a populist budget.

The budget will be a first by Desai, as he took charge of the finance department following a cabinet reshuffle last year, while the Opposition Congress also has a new leader of the house in tribal MLA Sukhram Rathwa who replaced Paresh Dhanani.