(Bloomberg) -- As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government prepares to present its last spending plan on Feb. 1 before India’s general election, the main question on people’s minds is: will it be a lame duck budget or a populist one?
Convention demands that the outgoing administration present an interim budget to secure parliament’s approval for expenses for a part of the financial year starting April until a new government is in place. The rules also allow for the spending plan to be passed by parliament’s lower house without any discussion.
India watchers are waiting to see if Modi will betray convention and announce tax concessions to win favor with voters after shock defeats for his Bharatiya Janata Party in key provincial polls last month. Given those risks, here’s a look at how the last three interim budgets panned out:
To contact the reporter on this story: Vrishti Beniwal in New Delhi at vbeniwal1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Karthikeyan Sundaram
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