While the Samajwadi Party protested the state government’s decision to cut short the Budget session and pass all grants in one day, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress were opposed to taking up of all 90 grants in one proposal.

After all Opposition parties, except the Rashtriya Lok Dal, had staged a walkout, the Assembly passed the budgetary grants and the Uttar Pradesh Finance Bill 2009 for the next financial year.

Raising the issue of curtailing the Budget session, Leader of the Opposition Mulayam Singh Yadav said: “A wrong precedent was being set. It was a clear violation of the legislators’ right.”

“If the BSP government was not ready to face the debate on the Budget, it could have brought a vote-on-account for the first three months of the next financial year. The full Budget should have been tabled after the Lok Sabha polls,” he added. Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari and BJP leader Om Prakash Singh supported Yadav.

Defending the state government’s action, Finance and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Lalji Verma said: “We are not setting a precedent. On March 11, 2006, the Budget was passed in a day when Mulayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister.”