It's a non-performing Modi government: Manmohan Singh

BENGALURU: “No prime minister has used their office to say things about his opponents (the way) Mr Modi has been doing day in and day out. It doesn’t behove a prime minister to stoop so low and it is not good for the country as a whole,” former prime minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Bengaluru to campaign for the Congress, said.

Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru on Monday, he said he was “really sorry that this state’s population should be.. what can I say… polarised”.

Singh, a former RBI governor, termed demonetisation and the “hasty implementation of GST” two major, avoidable blunders of the Modi government. “The losses the economy suffered due to these blunders have severely hurt the MSME sector and resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs,” he said.


The UPA government, which he had presided over between 2004 and 2014, had delivered an average growth rate of 7.8% despite global turbulence but the growth rate had fallen under the current NDA government despite favourable international climate, including low oil prices, he said.

Singh alleged that the NDA government had earned over Rs 10 lakh crore by constantly increasing petrol and diesel prices –– a fact repeated by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who was campaigning in Kolar the same day. Last month, petrol prices touched fouryear highs, on the back of rising global prices.

Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) had tripled since the UPA demitted office, and the quantum of fraud in the banking sector had “almost quadrupled from Rs 28,426 cr in September 2013 to Rs 1.11 lakh cr in September 2017”, he said. While it is true that India’s bad loans have risen sharply after 2015, the surge was also fuelled by RBI tightening norms for recognising NPAs that year.

Singh is among the many national leaders campaigning in the state. Modi has increased the number of his rallies from 15 to 20 while Rahul Gandhi is on his ninth campaign visit to the state. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be addressing her first rally in two years in Bijapur in north Karnataka on Tuesday.