Video Producer: Mayank Chawla
Video Editor: Sandeep Suman
In a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday, 17 February, said that while the economy of the country was in a bad shape, the BJP-led Centre was busy blaming India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for its problems.
In a video posted on the Congress party's Twitter handle, the 89-year-old former PM slammed the central government over the poor state of the economy in the country.
"While on the one hand, people are facing problems because of rising prices and unemployment, the central government, in power for seven-and-a-half years, instead of admitting their mistakes, was busy blaming India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the country's problems," Singh said.
The statement comes ahead of the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections. Dr Manmohan Singh urged the people of Punjab not to waste their precious votes on the BJP.
Comparing his tenure as PM with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh said, "In the 10 years that we were in power, I preferred focusing on my work instead of talking too much."
He also said that as prime minister, he never tried to divide the country or hide the truth from the Indian people, adding that the current government's policies were plagued by greed and hatred.
'Chinese Forces Sitting on Our Frontier'
Criticising the Modi government's foreign policy, Singh said that the government had failed to deal with China. Instead of managing the border crisis, he said, the government was trying to "suppress the issue."
Singh also said that the BJP had tried to defame Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi. He said that the party had made efforts to defame the farmers of Punjab as well as their Punjabiyat (spirit of Punjab).
Finally, he made an appeal to the voters of the state, stating that the problems faced by them, such as unemployment, agricultural distress, and development issues, could only be solved by the Congress.
As many as 117 seats of Punjab are slated to go to the polls on 20 February. The AAP's Bhagwant Mann and the Congress' Charanjit Singh Channi are the top contenders for the chief ministerial post.
While the ruling Congress had emerged victorious on 77 seats in the state in 2017, the BJP had secured only three.
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