New Delhi: Ahead of the impending general election, in the last session of the 17th Lok Sabha, the Modi government plans to table a "white paper" on the UPA government's economic mismanagement and has extended the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament by one day.
Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi on Tuesday said that the ongoing Budget Session is being extended till Saturday. The session, which began on January 31, was otherwise slated to end on February 9.
In her interim Budget speech on February 1, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the Central government will release a white paper comparing the state of the Indian economy before and after 2014.
When the BJP-led NDA government came into power in 2014, it had shot down the proposals to publish a white paper on the UPA government's economic mismanagement, fearing that it may add to the then-increasing global pessimism against India.
"It is now appropriate to look at where we were then till 2014 and where we are now, only for the purpose of drawing lessons from the mismanagement of those years. The government will lay a white paper on the table of the House," the Union finance minister had announced while presenting the interim Budget for the next financial year.
In her Budget speech, Ms Sitharaman said that when the Modi government assumed the reins in 2014, the responsibility to mend the economy step by step and to put the governance systems in order was enormous. The need of the hour, she said, was to give hope to the people, to attract investments and to build support for the much-needed reforms.
"The government did that successfully, following our strong belief in 'nation-first'," Ms Sitharaman said.
Parliament usually does not function on weekends, but there have been instances in the recent past when the Houses have met on Saturdays.
