‘It was my destiny to be the PM’

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said although the Opposition did not think he would last as the Prime Minister, he believed it was his destiny to hold the post. “They didn’t even believe I would last as the Prime Minister and some leaders even did havans that I should die on a certain day. But I have faith in a higher force. I believe it was my destiny to be the Prime Minister. I have the courage of conviction,” he said in an interview to a weekly.

The BJP rubbished Mr Singh’s charge that the principal opposition party was conducting havans to ensure that his life was cut short, asserting that the party treated him as “a political opponent, and not as an enemy”. Hours after the contents of the interview given by the Prime Minister were out, the BJP hit back at the PM.

“The Prime Minister has in the past made statements which are capable of criticism. The content of this statement, however, can only be described as rubbish,” BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said, adding caustically that it had “taken the Prime Minister three long years to discover the non-existent havans organised against him”.

The PM’s remarks and the BJP’s retaliatory strike are likely to widen the schism between the UPA and the NDA. The relations between the two sides, already under severe strain because of the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement, are likely to cast a shadow on the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.

“We wish him a very long life. May he live long and see after his tenure comes to an end how India is governed much better by others after him,” the senior BJP leader said. “The Prime Minister must acknowledge that the BJP also had a role in shaping his destiny,” Mr Jaitley observed, adding, “Had we not vehemently opposed the first choice of the Congress, Mr Singh as the second preference would have never made it to the office.” The PM, in his interview published in the journal’s latest issue, charged the Opposition with consistently hatching conspiracies to secure his ouster from power.