Several finance ministers and prime ministers have presented the Union Budget multiple times. However, the finance minister who has presented the highest number of budgets is Morarji Desai — with a record of 10 Union Budgets.
Born in Bulsar district of Gujarat in 1896, Desai presented the budget every year from 1959 to 1963. His second spree was from 1967 to 1969. Apart from this, he also presented the interim budget for 1962-63 and 1967-68.
This year, Finance Minister Sitharaman will be presenting the 31st budget (excluding interim ones) after the landmark economic liberalisation in 1991.
Earlier, six finance ministers: Manmohan Singh (1991-1996), Yashwant Sinha (1998-2003), Jaswant Singh (2003-2004), P Chidambaram (1996-1998, 2004-2009, 2013-2014), Pranab Mukherjee (2009-2013), and Arun Jaitley (2014-2019) had presented 28 budgets.
In the post-liberalisation era, with 8 budget presentations to his name, P Chidambaram presented the most number of budgets. Manmohan Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Jaitley presented five budgets each while Pranab Mukherjee presented four. Jaswant Singh presented only one budget.
Jaitley presented all the five Budgets of the Modi government's first tenure but missed out on presenting the interim budget in February this year due to illness. Stand-in Finance Minister Piyush Goyal presented the interim budget on February 1, 2019, before the 2019 Lok Sabha Sabha election.
The eighth Union Budget under the Modi government for FY2021-22 is scheduled to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2021, in the Parliament.
(With PTI inputs)