Manmohan hits out at govt over economic slowdown
NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday accused the Narendra Modi government of being in denial about the economic slowdown.
“This government does not acknowledge that there is such a word called slowdown. It is not good for the country. If you do not recognise the problem, you are not likely to find credible answers for corrective action,” said Singh.
He was speaking at the launch of former Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s book ‘Backstage’.
Singh termed the $5 trillion target the government has set for the economy in the next five years as “wishful thinking”.
Speaking of the book, he added that Ahluwalia’s decadelong role at the Commission was a “transformative” one and he gave the body a new direction.
The book, which traces the policy of reforms of the Indian economy, offers details of significant episodes during the term of the United Progressive Alliance. In his chapter on the nuclear deal, besides providing details of the domestic political dimension, Ahluwalia also elaborates on the role of the then United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who first during a visit to India in March 2005, had indicated that the US may be willing to explore ways of lifting restrictions without India having to give up its nuclear weapon capability.
During Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US later that year, when it appeared that the two sides may not be able to arrive at an agreement, it was Rice again who woke up at 4 am, spoke to the then external affairs minister Natwar Singh, met PM Singh, and got the go ahead for negotiators to work out the differences.
Ahluwalia writes, “One must also acknowledge the significance of Rice’s personal intervention on the morning of the talks. If she had behaved as most other foreign ministers, the matter would have been left to senior officials who would have found it impossible to get to the PM.”
Former finance minister P Chidambaram who was part of a panel discussion at the launch, too, took aim at the government and said that while the criticism against the UPA was that it passed on a banking crisis to the NDA, there was no answer from the current finance minister on what were the NPAS (non-performing assets).
“I have raised the question to the government on what were these NPAS — the ones we gave loans to and they evergreened and went bad, and the ones they gave loans to and went bad in 24 months. There is still no answer,” said Chidambaram.
He added that the UPA could have done more to advertise its achievements. “We took 140 million people out of poverty; it is something we could have spoken about more.”