- Monday, February 24, 2025
The 91-year-old, who served as the PM between 2004 and 2014, wrote a three-page open letter in which he lamented the “unimaginable turmoil” in the Indian economy in the last decade.
By: Shubham Ghosh
FORMER Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh has made an emotional appeal to the voters of his home state of Punjab before the final phase of the national election on Saturday (1), asking them to make the most of a “final chance to ensure” that the country’s democracy and Constitution are protected from “repeated assaults by a despotic regime”.
The 91-year-old, who served as the prime minister between 2004 and 2014 when the incumbent Narendra Modi took over, wrote a three-page open letter in which he lamented the “unimaginable turmoil” in the Indian economy over the past decade, the two terms of prime minister Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Singh, who retired from politics in April, was the finance minister of India when the country’s game-changing liberalisation took place in 1991. He has also been the governor of India’s central bank — the Reserve Bank of India. In his letter, he presented a concise comparison of key socio-political and economic moments from the past decade and the two terms of the government which was led by his Indian National Congress.
https://x.com/INCIndia/status/1796066685083930669
“The imposition of the demonetisation disaster, a flawed GST (goods and service tax), and the painful mismanagement during the COVID pandemic has resulted in a miserable situation, where an expectation of subpar six to seven per cent GDP growth has become the new normal,” the veteran said.
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“Average GDP growth under BJP government has plunged to under six per cent… during Congress-UPA tenure it was about eight per cent (New Series). Unprecedented unemployment and unbridled inflation have greatly widened inequality, which is now at a 100-year high,” he added.
Singh’s letter was shared on social media platform X by his party an hour after the Reserve Bank unveiled its annual report, in which it made a forecast of real GDP growth of seven per cent for the current financial year.
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According to Singh, his former United Progressive Alliance government “despite challenges, had increased purchasing power of our people”, while “BJP misrule has resulted in depletion of household savings to historic 47-year low”.
He also mentioned the farmers’ protests that still haunt the Modi government — four years after a nation-wide agitation by several agriculturists made headlines worldwide, and forced the BJP to withdraw three controversial laws — he reproached the government for having “left no stone unturned in castigating Punjabis”.
All 13 constituencies of Punjab will go to polls on Saturday.
The results of the election will be announced on June 4.
