The government on Tuesday replied to the Election Commission on the opposition complaint against presenting the Union Budget days before the Assembly elections, defending its decision to advance the Budget session.
The Cabinet Secretariat on Tuesday wrote to the Election Commission, which had asked it to respond to a representation by Opposition parties urging the poll panel to make the government postpone the Budget till the Assembly polls are over.
The government is learnt to have described the Union Budget as an annual constitutional exercise covering the entire country and not just a few states, an apparent rebuttal of the Opposition charge that the Budget will be used to woo voters in the poll-bound states.