Almost half the size from what he was during last year’s Budget speech, when he had to take a break because of a painful back, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley looked visibly healthier on Saturday when he got up to present the Budget.

Jaitley, 62, who underwent a surgery and was medically advised to lose weight, began his speech while standing, something he was distinctly uncomfortable with last year. After a while, when Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked him to sit down and read, he declined to do so. However, he had to give in after about 25 minutes and read the rest of his 100-minute speech sitting. In the process, his Cabinet colleague, Nitin Gadkari, had to reluctantly move back.

Incidentally, many Cabinet Ministers squeezed themselves on rows behind Jaitley, perhaps to remain in the line of vision of TV cameras. An articulate speaker, Jaitley began on a positive note, saying: “The world is predicting that it is India’s chance to fly”, but soon took a dig at the previous UPA government, referring to it as “scam, scandal and corruption raj”.

Watched over by industrialists Naveen Jindal and Anu Aga, lyricist Javed Akhtar and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh in the packed visitors’ gallery, Jaitley’s speech ran its course without any disruption, barring a loud ‘we knew it’ sigh from the Opposition benches when he proposed a cut in corporate tax and abolition of wealth tax.

Jaitley ended his speech by committing his government to the D aridra Narayan (poor).

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