"We are the largest importer of defence equipment in the world. For the last one and half months, most of the foreign leaders who came to meet us were pitching for sale of their defence equipments," he said.

The minister said it would be wiser if there were companies with 51 per cent Indian equity, getting foreign technology and investment and manufacturing defence equipment here.

He made a veiled attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family over some Congress leaders objecting to 200 crore allocated in the Budget for the Sardar Patel statue project in Gujarat.

"I would rather want hundreds of memorials for Sardar Patel across India. I consider Patel as the tallest leader since independence. It was he who brought about the merger of 550 princely states within two and half years of independence," Jaitley said.

He said Jawaharlal Nehru took up one issue — Jammu and Kashmir — "and look where we are today on Kashmir."

The minister said the Centre must contribute to the Gujarat's project erecting the world's tallest statue in the Narmada river for which he would like state governments to also contribute.

He said Congress leaders were objecting may be because Patel did not belong to a particular family.

On former finance minister P Chidambaram's statement that the Budget speech was only a reiteration of Congress' government's policies and targets, Jaitley said, "I would then be very happy, if the Congress supports our budget but I know they won't support. The UPA government had left the economy in a mess."

On introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said states had reservations about getting their dues after the new levy is introduced.

"After we pay off their bills (dues of states), we will then introduce this GST. This will increase our GDP, reduce tax evasion and also reduce undue harassment to industry," he said.

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