Positive signs emanating from Narendra Modi government: Pranab Mukherjee

NEW DELHI: This was one birthday gift that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not have expected.

President Pranab Mukherjee’s praise of positive signs emanating from the BJP government, that he said may spur economic growth and had contained inflation, may be the most significant stamp of approval on its performance in the first 100 days. Interestingly, Mukherjee made two statements to this effect in as many days during his trip to Vietnam.

The first was when he chose to spoke extempore before the Indian diaspora in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, where he also said global circumstances and luck were not on his side when the Indian economy slipped down in his tenure as the finance minister in the UPA government.

“After the new government came out with a massive mandate, they also worked out crucial policies,” Mukherjee said. En route home on Wednesday, Mukherjee first said he would not take any political questions since he was the President and clarified that he was only stating facts on the Indian economy a day earlier.

But he then made an important addition. “The new government, after assuming office, has chartered a scheme, through which there are possibilities of having a larger FDI, GDP growth may increase and inflation has been contained. So, certain positive signs are there,” Mukherjee said.

Ex-Cabinet Secretary and one of the country’s most respected bureaucrats, Naresh Chandra, said Mukherjee’s statements bring out the maturity of the Indian democracy. “I think he has been very fair and faithful to the high office he holds. If you are the President, it is your endeavour that the government of the day is successful.

This brings out the maturity of the Indian democracy where people like Pranab Mukherjee have risen above the old party lines,” Chandra told ET. A senior government official said Mukherjee and Modi “get along well” and the former “appreciates the pro-activeness” of the new government on the economy front. “There have been no skirmishes between the government and the President on the governors’ issue,” the official said.