Why Finance Minister Always Carries a Briefcase on Budget Day

The French Connection
The word Budget is derived from the French word 'Bougette' which means a leather bag, and that's why you'd see every Finance Minister carrying a leather briefcase on the Budget Day. The tradition to carry a bougette started over one and a half century ago, when in 1860, the then Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Chief William Ewart Gladstone carried a red suitcase for his bundle of financial papers with the Queen's monogram embossed in gold over it. Gladstone was known for lengthy budget speeches that required a lot of financial documents and papers; and the Queen herself presented this Budget Box to ease his purpose. The Red Gladstone Budget Box was carried with equal pride since 1860 on every Budget Day until 2010 when the Red Gladstone Budget Box was officially retired in the UK, placed into a museum and replaced by a fresh Red Leather Budget Box.

Britain's Colonial Footprint
So as you now know the history of the Budget aka 'Bougette' in the United Kingdom, Britain's colonial footprint led to this Leather Bag's debut in the Independent India when India's first Finance Minister RK Shanmukham Chetty presented India's First Budget on 26th November 1947 and arrived with a leather bag carrying his set of Financial Papers that presented India’s Financial Innings. Apart from India, other British colonies like Uganda, Zimbabwe & Malaysia too follow carrying a briefcase to deliver the budget speech.

Different Strokes
Although FM Shanmukham's Budget Box has not been passed on to his successors; the Indian Finance Ministers have followed this colonial footprint and kept the tradition alive by carrying a briefcase on the budget day. The leather bags and brief cases used have differed in shades in the past, the most interesting being the one carried by President Pranab Mukherjee during the UPA rule when he was the then Finance Minister, he carried a Red Budget Box similar to that of William E Gladstone!