“History will be kinder to me”, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh uttered these famous words during a presser in New Delhi in January 2014, months before he demitted office. Facing a volley of questions about his leadership, Manmohan Singh had asserted that his leadership was not weak history would be kinder to him than what the media projected at that time.
‘History will be..’
“I do not believe that I have been a weak Prime Minister … I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or for that matter the Opposition in Parliament… Given the political compulsions, I have done the best I could do,” Singh had said in one of his last media interaction before the BJP came to power after the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.
“…I have done as well as I could do according to the circumstances… It is for history to judge what I have done or what I have not done,” Singh, who was the prime minister for 10 years till Narendra Modi came to power on May 26, 2014.
Manmohan Singh was responding to a volley of questions regarding criticism that his leadership was “weak” and he was not decisive on many occasions.
‘Narendra Modi will be disastrous for India’
During the press conference, Manmohan Singh tore into the BJP and its then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, whom the saffron party had projected as a “strong leader”, while labelling Singh as “weak”, ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The then Prime Minister took the criticism head on and had famously said that Narendra Modi coming to power will prove “disastrous” for the country.
“If you measure the strength of Prime Minister by presiding over mass massacre of innocent citizens on streets of Ahmedabad, then I do not believe in it…. I do not think that this kind of strength this country needs least from its Prime Minister,” I have full confidence that the next Prime Minister will be from the UPA… It will be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as Prime Minister… I sincerely believe what Narendra Modi is saying is not going to materialise,” Singh had said.
‘Nobody asked me to step down’
Maintaining that his two terms as prime minister in UPA I and UPA II displayed the Congress’s ability to run a coalition government and dispelled the perception that this party cannot run coalitions, Singh said though some compromises were made in the process, they were on “peripheral issues and not on national problems”.
“Nobody has asked me to step down because of any inadequacy that characterised my tenure as prime minister,” was his response when asked about “negative” perceptions within Congress about his leadership.
Manmohan Singh dies at 92
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh passed away at Delhi’s AIIMS on late Thursday night. He was 92. “With profound grief, we inform the demise of Former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, aged 92,” AIIMS said in statement.
Manmohan Singh, one of the tallest leaders of the Congress in recent decades, served two consecutive terms as the Prime Minister of India, from 2004-2014. A famed economist, Manmohan Singh is credited with bringing several vital economic reforms that opened up the Indian economy to global markets and set the course for India’s growth.
(With PTI inputs)
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