Nirmala Sitharaman to reply to budget debate in Lok Sabha on July 30, Kumari Selja lead opposition speaker

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, July 24

Hisar Lok Sabha MP Kumari Selja will be the lead speaker of the opposition when the union budget discussions commence in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

Shashi Tharoor and Parineeti Shinde will be the other speakers from the Congress camp.

Anurag Thakur, Nishikant Dubey and Biplab Deb will be the main speakers from the BJP.

The Tribune, meanwhile, has learnt that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will reply to the budget discussions on July 30, and to the Finance Bill, 2024, on August 7.

It is learnt that the Lok Sabha business advisory committee has selected five ministries for a detailed debate on the budget — railways, health, education, MSMEs/food processing and energy. Demands for grants of all other ministries that are not discussed in the House will be guillotined on August 5.

The parliamentary practice has been to select a few ministries for in-depth discussions during the budget session and combine the budgets of rest of the ministries for passage, a process that’s called a guillotine.

The FM’s reply to the Finance Bill will take place on August 7, concluding the passage of the budget and the finance bill.

Sources told The Tribune that smaller parties are likely to get a chance to speak in the budget debate in the Lok Sabha.