A TIME OF RECKONING

WILL THE LAST FULL BUDGET BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTIONS BE A POPULIST ONE, AIMED AT PLEASING THE VOTE BANKS? UNLIKELY, BECAUSE INDIA'S ECONOMIC TRAJECTORY NEEDS BIG DOSES OF GROWTH HORMONES, AND CAN DO WITHOUT ANY ADVENTURISM

- ALOKESH BHATTACHARYYA

IT IS THAT TIME of the year again. The time of the Union Budget. The time for Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to announce the accounts of the Government of India. And the time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unmistakable touches in economic and social strategy to peep through the pages of the FM's Budget speech. This time, there's an added dimension-February 1, 2023 will see the last Budget of the current BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government before the next parliamentary elections in 2024. Historically, such occasions have seen governments announce an array of sops to please different sets of vote banks.

Such a picture is unlikely to be painted this time. For one thing, despite some shifts in political alignments and the BJP's not-so impressive performance in some state elections, no real opposition force seems to have evolved to a point to pose a serious challenge to a dominant NDA government at the Centre, led by a still-very-popular Prime Minister. For another, while India's economy is doing well-the fastest-growing major economy in the world, no less (in the G20, only Saudi Arabia is growing faster)-several headwinds are blowing vigorously, and would serve to thwart any adventurist possibilities.

Resilient is the word being used to describe the country’s current economic footing, even as the developed world goes through major convulsions—war in Ukraine and consequent mass migration, jobs and lives lost, and rising supply chain pressures; high inflation in the US, the UK and other developed economies; the return of Covid-19 in China and some western countries; the real possibility of softened prices of crude oil and other commodities spiking again; and some others. Naturally, such global tremors would not leave India untouched.