Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives his predecessor Manmohan Singh at his official residence in New Delhi yesterday. “Very happy to meet Dr Manmohan Singh ji & welcome him back to 7 RCR (Race Course Road). We had a great meeting,” Modi tweeted. The former prime minister’s Congress Party appeared to be unaware of what transpired at the meeting.
Agencies/New Delhi
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh yesterday denied any wrongdoing during his decade-long tenure.
“I can say in all humility that I have not used my public office to enrich myself, enrich my family or to enrich my friends,” Singh told a convention of National Students Union of India, the students’ wing of the Congress Party.
India’s former telecoms regulator had on Tuesday accused Singh of allowing a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal involving allocation of mobile spectrum in 2009.
Singh, who faced criticism from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party following allegations by former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman Pradip Baijal relating to 2G allocations, said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had been fighting corruption.
Baijal alleged that Singh had warned him of harm if he did not co-operate on 2G telecom licences. He also said that Singh asked him to co-operate with the then communications minister Dayanidhi Maran as non-cooperation could compromise the UPA government.
Baijal also alleged that Maran had warned him of “serious consequences” if he gave unified licensing recommendations.
Attacking the BJP yesterday, Singh said the ruling party continues to harp on the theme of corruption as it wants to divert the attention of the people to non-issues.
“As far as I am concerned, I can say in all humility that I have not used my public office to enrich myself, to enrich my family or to enrich my friends,” he said.
Singh accused his successor Narendra Modi of suppressing dissent and undermining democratic institutions, in an unusually outspoken attack a year after losing office.
He said Modi’s government had “rewritten” history to suit its Hindu nationalist mindset since storming to power in general elections last May.
“Institutions of democracy are under threat. The entire edifice of the welfare state is now being dismantled,” said the 82-year-old Congress leader.
“The past is continually being rewritten to promote a highly biased and communal view of history. Dissent is being suppressed,” said Singh, who was prime minister from 2004 until last year.
Members of the BJP-led government have faced criticism over a series of sensational claims for Hinduism - including suggestions that ancient Hindu sages were the pioneers of aviation and algebra.
Modi has also faced criticism over a clampdown on campaign groups including Greenpeace, which had its foreign funding licence withdrawn last month.
The government cited violations of rules governing international financial transactions.
But Greenpeace accused it of waging a “malicious” campaign against the group, which has spoken out about the environmental damage caused by India’s heavy reliance on coal and the impact of deforestation.
Singh, a pioneer of India’s landmark economic reforms in the 1990s, also said millions of “distressed farmers” were unhappy with the Modi government, which wants to pass a controversial bill making it easier to acquire land.
“Throughout the country, there is acute distress in rural areas,” he said.
