Gujarat Budget for fiscal 2023-24 to be presented in Assembly on Feb 24

The Budget session of the Gujarat Assembly will begin from Thursday in Gandhinagar and the state Budget for FY 2023-24 will be presented on Friday as Opposition parties geared up to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government over key issues such as leak of question papers of recruitment exams, inflation and unemployment.

A detailed agenda of the Assembly during the more than three-week-long session was discussed at a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) on Wednesday, said an official release. This will be the first budget of the state after the BJP retained power with a thumping majority in the December 2022 Assembly polls and Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel returned for a fresh term in office. The meeting of the BAC, which decides legislative business and other issues related to an Assembly session, was held under the chairmanship of Speaker Shankar Chaudhary and attended by MLAs of the ruling BJP, including Chief Minister Patel, and Opposition members. Separate meetings of MLAs of the Opposition Congress and the BJP legislature party will be held later in the day to finalize their respective strategies for the session. The Budget session of the Assembly will start from Thursday (February 23) and end on March 29. On the first day of the session, Governor Acharya Devvrat will address the Assembly, said the release. On Friday (February 24), the state Budget for fiscal 2023-24 will be presented in the Assembly by Finance Minister Kanu Desai, it said. This will be Desai's his third Budget in a row. The session will have a total of 25 sittings. Five days have been earmarked for discussion on various bills that the government wants to introduce in the House for its consideration and passage, said the release. The session is expected to be stormy as Opposition parties Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have said they will raise issues of public importance such as leak of question papers of competitive recruitment exams, inflation, unemployment and farmer woes, among others. The government is likely to bring various bills, including one with stringent provisions to punish those involved in leaking question papers of recruitment exams.