Singh hits out, says govt unable to find solution to revive economy

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday (October 17), responding to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s comment blaming him for the bank crisis, said that the government “is obsessed with trying to fix blame on its opponents” instead of finding solutions.

Singh also referred to the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank crisis, which has impacted 16 lakh investors, and said the BJP governments at the centre and Maharashtra were unwilling to adopt people-friendly policies.

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“I have just seen the statements by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. I won’t like to comment on that statement, but before one can fix the economy, one needs a correct diagnosis of its ailments and their causes. The government is obsessed with trying to fix blame on its opponent, thus it is unable to find a solution that will ensure revival of the economy,” Singh said at a press conference in Mumbai.

“When I was in office what happened did happen. There were some weaknesses. But you can’t claim that the fault lies with the UPA always. You have been in office for five years. Mainly passing buck to UPA is not enough,” said Singh, who was India’s prime minister from 2004 to 2014.

On Tuesday, Nirmala Sitharaman had, at an event in the US, said she held the Manmohan Singh-Raghuram Rajan combination responsible for subjecting public sector banks to their ‘worst phase’.

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