Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday once again went to Parliament with a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional ‘bahi-khata’ style pouch to present the interim budget 2024-25 in a paperless format. Like the previous three years. Before heading to meet the president, she posed for a traditional “briefcase” photo with her team of officials outside her office. Holding a tablet instead of a briefcase, she presented the budget in digital format.

She kept her tablet carefully inside a red cover with a gold national emblem instead of a briefcase and headed directly to Parliament after meeting President Drupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Sitharaman, India’s first full-time female finance minister, ditched her colonial-era budget briefcase in July 2019 in favor of a traditional “bahi-khata” to hold federal budget documents. She used the same device the following year, and in a pandemic-hit 2021, she used a digital tablet instead of traditional paper to carry her speeches and other budget documents.

The tradition continued Thursday. Her fiscal budget starting in April 2024 (2024-24 fiscal year) is the Modi government’s 12th consecutive budget since 2014 (including an interim budget presented before the 2019 general elections).

When Narendra Modi returned to power in the 2019 general elections, she was appointed finance minister and presented her first budget on July 5, 2019. She uses a red cloth folder wrapped in string and stamped with the national emblem to store budget documents. Budget 2024-25 is Sitharaman’s sixth consecutive budget.

Earlier, finance ministers in different governments, including Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal, predecessors in the Modi government, used standard budget briefcases. Before Sitharaman, during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the long-standing colonial tradition associated with budget presentation was broken when then finance minister Yashwant Sinha spoke at 11 am pm instead of the traditional 5 pm.

Thereafter, governments will present their budget proposals at 11 am. The tradition of carrying a budget briefcase is a British heritage. The word “Budget” is derived from the French word “bougette” which means leather briefcase.

The ‘Budget’ tradition began in the 18th century, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the head of the UK budget, was asked to ‘open the budget’ when presenting the annual statements. In 1860, William E Gladstone, then head of the British budget, placed his papers in a red suitcase emblazoned with the Queen’s gold monogram. The Budget Briefcase came into being because Gladstone’s speeches were particularly long and he needed a briefcase to carry his speech documents.

However, in India, different finance ministers carry briefcases in different colors, red, black, tan or brown. In 1947, India’s first finance minister RK Shanmukham Chetty presented the first budget with a leather briefcase. TT Krishnamachari in the 1950s holding what looks like a document bag. Jawaharlal Nehru carries a black briefcase.

As finance minister, Manmohan Singh launched his landmark economic liberalization proposal in 1991, carrying a black bag. When Pranab Mukherjee was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s finance minister, he used a red briefcase similar to the Gladstone case in the UK. Piyush Goyal, who presented the interim budget in February 2019, was the last finance minister to carry a briefcase. He went to Parliament with a red passport.

On Budget Day, India’s Finance Minister posed with a budget bag outside Parliament. In the UK, the Chancellor of the Exchequer posed with a suitcase in front of 11 Downing Street before the budget speech. Soon after presenting the first budget of 2019, Sitharaman said bahi-khata was a break from the colonial legacy.

“Why don’t I have a leather bag to carry my budget documents? I think it’s time we got over the hangover in the UK and do something ourselves. Well, I’m easier to carry too,” she said. However, one of her predecessors, Congress MP P Chidambaram, scoffed at her choice. “The future Congress finance minister will carry an iPad,” the former finance minister said when asked to comment on the bahi-khata.

Sitharaman has done it in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and again this year.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from associated news agency – PTI)