Nirmala Sitharaman said that the democratised leadership of Manmohan Singh resulted in a lot of corruption thus defending any charges of authoritarian rule by Modi.
As the growth of the Indian economy continues to slide downwards, with no end in sight despite the slew of revival initiatives of the government, a full-blown blame game is on between the BJP and others. The former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, who was in charge between 2004 to 2014 has been super critical of Modi’s policies and mismanagement of the economy, particularly of initiatives like the draconian demonetisation which immensely harmed the cash-dependent informal sector of the Indian economy and the hurried implementation of the GST which has harassed the MSME sector in particular.
He says that India is in the midst of a prolonged slowdown, which has been caused by the flawed policies of Mr. Modi and all-round mismanagement of the economy. He urged the government to set aside its vendetta politics and listen to all sane voices and thinking minds in order to steer the economy out of this man-made crisis. He further points out that the UPA was able to revive the Indian economy despite the global crisis of 2008.
Yet another fierce critic of the Modi government policies has been Raghuram Rajan, the former RBI governor, who also blames the government for the demonetisation blunder and for its pathetic management of the Indian economy. Speaking at a convocation recently at the O. P. Jindal Law University, he said that India needs internal cohesion and economic growth rather than divisive populist majoritarianism, which he says is taking India down a dark and uncertain path.
It was payback time for these two fierce Modi critics in New York yesterday at a time when it has become fashionable for India’s politicians to settle scores abroad. Speaking at the Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs, the FM Ms Nirmala Sitharaman held Manmohan Singh and Raghuram Rajan for subjecting India’s public sector banks to their worst phase.
She said that during their tenure loans were given to cronies on phone calls and so heavy are the losses suffered by them that these banks are still depending upon equity infusion by the government. She pointed out that bad bank loans i.e. NPAs rose from Rs. 9190 crores in 2011 to Rs. 2.16 lac cr. in 2014. She respectfully said that Rajan is a great scholar and thanked him for conducting the QAR of banks in October 2015, but belittled his credit by saying that he came to the RBI when the economy was buoyant.
She further said that they have left behind such a nasty stink of corruption in banks, which the government is cleaning even today. She remarked that the democratised leadership of Manmohan Singh resulted in a lot of corruption thus defending any charges of authoritarian rule by Mr Modi. That was a lot of dirty Indian linen washed in public on foreign soil.
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