From Chanakya to Tagore: Here're all classic Budget speech anecdotes by Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the full and final Budget of the incumbent central government led by PM Modi ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While there is a lot that people are expecting from this year’s Budget, many are expecting Sitharaman to repeat her style to attract their attention with various quotes, phrases, and sayings in her 2023 Union Budget speech. 

Top quotes from Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget speeches

1. Sitharaman exemplifies Elephant

Quoting a verse in Tamil, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden 2019 Budget speech said, “Just a few mounds of rice cooked from a small piece of land is enough for the elephant. But if the same elephant enters a paddy field it will end up trampling more than it would consume.”

She further explained the verse and said that the government does not intend to 'trample' anybody like the elephant and will spend Rs 100 lakh crores for infrastructure in the coming years. 

2. Chanakya: A always yes in Budget

In 2019, when Nirmala Sitharaman gave her first Budget speech after taking over the Ministry of Finance, she quoted Chanakya Niti in her Budget speech and also used a couplet from the Urdu poet Manzoor Hashmi. 

“Karya purusha karena lakshyam sampadyate (With determined human efforts, the task will surely be completed),” she quoted from the Chanakya Niti.

Further reading the Urdu poet’s work, she said, “Yakeen ho toh koi raasta nikalta hai, hawa ki oat lekar chirag jalta hai.”

3. ‘Myon Vatan’: Sitharaman quotes Kashmiri poet

She also recited a verse from Kashmiri Pandit Deena Nath Kaul's poem “Myon Vatan” (My Motherland) and further translated the poem for everyone in Parliament while presenting the Budget in 2020.

The Hindi translation of the Kashmiri poem read as:

"Hamara vatan, khilte hue Shalimar Bagh jaisa

Hamara vatan, Dal jheel main khilte hue kamal jaisa

Naujawano ki garam khoon jaisa

Mera vatan, tera vatan, hamara vatan

Duniya ka sabse pyaara vatan…

Referring to these lines, Nirmala Sitharaman said, "Everything that the government does and aims to do is for this pyaara vatan (beloved country)."

4. Tagore in Sitharaman’s Budget speech

Presenting her third Budget for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman quoted Rabindranath Tagore. Borrowing the words of Rabindranath Tagore, Sitharaman started her 2021 Budget speech with – “Faith is the word that feels the lights and sings when the dawn is still dark."

5. Nirmala Sitharaman quotes Mahabharata verse 

“The king must collect taxes in accordance with dharma,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman started the second part of her Union Budget speech with a verse from the Mahabharata regarding direct taxes.