A combative External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday said she was ready for a debate in Parliament over Congress allegations about her links with controversial former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi.
A strong showing will be vital to Narendra Modi's chances of a second term.
Jaitley said growing at 8-10 per cent for a significant number of years will help India find an answer to poverty.
Nitin Gadkari is the rising star, Arun Jaitley commands respect while minister of state Dharmendra Pradhan seems to be the PM's new favourite.
The Congress members raised slogans and trooped into the Well of the House, demanding apology of the minister.
In a counter attack on Rahul Gandhi for asking Narendra Modi to "stop fooling" the people, BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said voters are not ullus (fools) if they exercise their vote against the Congress.
Biennial elections are being held for 58 Rajya Sabha seats across several states and by-poll for one in Kerala.
Jaitley's concerns are unlikely to cut much ice with the Congress.
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With the government pushing key reform measures like insurance and coal block allocation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the country cannot wait even if one of the Houses of Parliament "waits indefinitely".
As the finance minister rises in the House to present the Budget, some interesting facts about the annual financial plan for the country.
"The chief minister's office has not been raided. The raid has nothing to do with Arvind Kejriwal or his tenure. There is a corruption case against an officer of Delhi government. The raid is in relation to that officer. It is the officer (office) that has been searched," Jaitley said in Rajya Sabha.
Arun Jaitley had a tough fiscal hill to climb.
Jaitley also dismissed criticism that lower taxes were aimed at helping corporates.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
IMAGES from the WPL final between Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday
The fiscal policy, he said, needs to be better and the first priority should be to address areas that are like low-hanging fruits
With several Parliament sessions during UPA-II being largely disrupted, BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday "regretted" that a lot of valuable time was lost in the last five years due to "confrontationist politics" and said the Opposition achieves much more through debates than disturbances.
Rediff.com take a look at the crorepatis contesting the Lok Sabha elections
'On the tax front, most of the Budget proposals are sensible'.
Investors want lower securities tax, tax breaks on equity investments.
GST compensation law allows for imposition of cess on certain luxury goods like tobacco, high-end cars and aereated drinks to create a corpus for compensating states for any loss of revenue in the first five years
Union Minister Arun Jaitley while releasing the document said BJP's manifesto is particularly aimed at improving the social infrastructure in Punjab, even as he slammed Congress for its policies which he alleged paved way for militancy in Punjab in 1980s and termed its 2002-2007 tenure in power as "most dishonest and corrupt".
Banks are likely to cut rates even further, say finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Team Anna on Tuesday met senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj to lobby for the party's support for inclusion of lower bureaucracy, judiciary and Central Bureau of Intelligence under the purview of proposed Lokpal.
The debate on the Rafale jet fighter deal saw a head-on collision between the government and the Congress in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajparty Party, which support the United Progressive Alliance from outside, on Wednesday created repeated obstructions in Rajya Sabha, prompting an angry Bharatiya Janata Party to allege that the government has decided not to run the House because of its 'number game'.
The BJP threw a counter punch, claiming that the Gandhi family tried to help Mallya's floundering Kingfisher Airlines in 2011-12.
"The Congress party complains a bit too much. It accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of 'stealing' the mandate in Goa. It unsuccessfully petitioned before the Supreme Court. It attempted to raise issues in the Lok Sabha," he said in a Facebook post.
Jaitley has managed the difficult feat of sticking to the fiscal correction.
Karnataka's legislator from Bharatiya Janata Party, Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, has claimed that he was approached by some people offering him the state chief minister's position, in exchange for Rs 2,500 crore.
Raising the issue, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the prime minister should come to the House and clarify on what he said, as his charges that his predecessor was "conspiring" with Pakistan was "a big issue."
"In view of our economic condition, I expect bitter-sweet Budget. I think the Budget will be good for the country. It can be bitter but may be sweet, too," says Dolly Jaitley.
Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh has questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party's stand on Kashmir, in the backdrop of the recent meeting between journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
The Budget may see new rural schemes and stepping up of funding towards existing programmes like MNREGA, rural housing, irrigation projects and crop insurance.
Terming the Emergency as the worst post-independence chapter of Indian democracy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said it gave him the best political education of his life as it taught him that some compromises are "just not possible".
The prime minister was often seen vigorously thumping the desk, prompting his Cabinet colleagues and NDA MPs to follow suit.
Agitating students of Film and Television Institute of India-Pune on Friday.
According to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who spent 19 months in prison during the 1975 Emergency imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, it is not possible for anybody to convert a democratic India into a "dictatorship" in this day and age.
Though not a blockbuster budget it does not undermine the fact that key issues were addressed and the finance minister certainly did not under-deliver, says Vatsal Srivastava.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley faces a tough electoral battle in his maiden bid to enter Lok Sabha from Amritsar but is unfazed by his "reluctant" heavyweight opponent Capt Amarinder Singh as he claims the groundswell against Congress "adds to my confidence".
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