Akash Sama­roo

The Prime Min­is­ter is blam­ing “leaked in­fo” for the con­fu­sion last evening over the bud­get date.

The Bud­get is now con­firmed for Oc­to­ber 13, not through any of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment ac­count or email, but via a so­cial me­dia post from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Face­book page, which was lat­er shared by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter on his What­sApp sta­tus.

The Prime Min­is­ter as­sured that the date would be of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced through gov­ern­ment chan­nels lat­er to­day.

Un­cer­tain­ty arose last evening af­ter a so­cial me­dia post claimed the Fi­nance Min­is­ter had an­nounced Oc­to­ber 13 as the date for the na­tion­al bud­get. 

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter lat­er clar­i­fied that he had made no such an­nounce­ment, even as some col­leagues shared the post on so­cial me­dia and mes­sag­ing apps.

Around 7:30 p.m., a dig­i­tal fly­er fea­tur­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo against the back­drop of the Red House, with the text “Na­tion­al Bud­get 2025/2026 Pre­sent­ed by the Ho­n­ourable Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Mon­day 13th Oc­to­ber at 1:30 p.m.,” be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing rapid­ly on­line.

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to con­firm the fly­er’s au­then­tic­i­ty. Some gov­ern­ment min­is­ters ini­tial­ly in­di­cat­ed it was gen­uine but re­tract­ed their state­ments min­utes lat­er, while oth­ers said they were un­aware of any such an­nounce­ment.

At around mid­night, the UNC post­ed that the bud­get date would be Oc­to­ber 13, which was con­firmed by Min­is­ter Tan­coo this morn­ing when he shared the post on his What­sApp sta­tus.

Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter to com­ment on the han­dling of the an­nounce­ment and the con­fu­sion last evening. The PM re­spond­ed on­ly with, “leaked in­fo.”

When asked why Min­is­ter Tan­coo did not use of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment chan­nels to an­nounce the bud­get date, the PM said, “He will put out an of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment to­day.”

Min­is­ter Tan­coo was al­so asked why he han­dled the an­nounce­ment in that way but did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond.