Finance minister Arun Jaitley says that the government will stick to the fiscal glide path if voted back to power

“If back in office for the next five years, we have to set our targets clear,” he said.

Jaitley also hinted that cement, which is in the 28 per cent goods and services tax (GST) bracket, will be brought down to a lower bracket soon. “In the last 20-odd months of the GST, except for cement, every item of consumption has come down to 18 per cent and 12 per cent from 28 percent so it is only a matter of time that the last one also comes down,” he said.

The finance minister also slammed the critics of electoral bonds and called the debate an ill-informed one. “I regret that the whole debate on electoral bonds is an ill-informed one. The earlier system was opaque who the donor was, who the intermediary was, who the political party benefitting was, none of these were known. Every stage was non-transparent. While the Election Commission has succeeded in many areas, they haven't been able to control cash. Electoral bonds are a reasonably transparent step,” he said.

“The only non-transparent part is that only you know who you are distributing the electoral bonds to. Now if you ask people to disclose who they are donating to through electoral bonds, I am sure the system of cash will be back,” the finance minister said.

On Wednesday, the government opposed in the Supreme Court the concerns raised by the Election Commission on issuing electoral bonds and justified the changes in law saying it was "a pioneer step" to bring poll reforms "ensuring transparency" and “accountability” in political funding.