EX-PM Manmohan Singh retires from RS after 33 yrs
NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of India’s economic liberalisation and the force behind the 2008 Indo-us nuclear agreement, will finish a remarkable political innings in the Rajya Sabha spanning 33 years on Wednesday.
Singh headed a government that transformed the social welfare framework with a bouquet of rights-based legislation and ushered in a slew of reforms including Direct Benefit Transfer and launched Aadhaar.
Singh, 91, was the third PM from the Rajya Sabha after Indira Gandhi (in her first term) and Inder Kumar Gujral.
On a personal level, India’s only Sikh PM was known as an epitome of grace and politeness. When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was formed, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee had to force Singh to stop addressing him as “sir” — an old habit since Singh was the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor when Mukherjee was the Union finance minister.
Singh entered the Upper House in October 1991, four months after he became the finance minister in June 1991. He represented Assam for five terms in the Upper House and shifted to Rajasthan in 2019.
Proficient in Urdu and English, Singh remained one of the best parliamentary speakers in the recent past. “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea,” Singh said as he presented his first budget in 1991.
He didn’t shy away from saying “I bow my head in shame” in the Upper House on the 1984 Anti
Sikh massacre.
And when late Sushma Swaraj resorted to an Urdu shayari to question the PM, Singh—an ardent fan of poet Iqbal—floored everyone saying: “Maana ki teri deed ke kabil nahi hoon main, tu mera shauq dekh mera intizaar dekh (Agreed I am not worthy of your sight, behold my zeal and see how I wait).”
“We live in times that are largely shaped by you. The economic prosperity and stability that we enjoy today is built on the foundations laid by you along with our former PM, Bharat Ratna Shri PV Narasimha Rao. The current set of leaders who have reaped the benefits of your work are reluctant to credit you due to political biases,” said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge in a glowing tribute.
Hailing Singh as “a hero of the middle class,” Kharge said, “The nation misses the quiet yet strong dignity that you brought to the office of the Prime Minister. Parliament will now miss your wisdom and experience. Your dignified, measured, soft spoken yet statesman like words are in contrast to the loud voices filled with lies that signify the current politics.”
Old timers in the Rajya Sabha shared many memories of Singh, who was a regular at the Parliament library to scan magazines for articles on economics. Once, he drank lassi at the milk department’s stall outside the Central Hall and started digging in his pockets for money. The milkman repeatedly requested him to not pay, but a determined Singh gathered coins from different pockets and paid ₹6.
Singh’s last intervention in Parliament was against demonetisation. He called it “an organised loot and legalised plunder”.
Former Union minister P Chidambaram, who was the commerce minister when Singh was the finance minister, told HT, “Dr Manmohan Singh entered politics 33 years ago like a lamb. As he leaves the Rajya Sabha tomorrow, his work and his accomplishments will resonate for many years like the roar of a lion. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life that I had an opportunity to work with Dr Singh for many years.”
Kapil Sibal, who was the education and law minister under Singh, said: “In 10 years as PM, he never called me to say that please do this or do that...he never interfered or foisted his opinion on me.”