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NEW DELHI : Days after the Supreme Court gave former prime minister Manmohan Singh a clean chit in the coal block allocation case, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said his record of integrity and accountability stood in stark contrast to the way the Narendra Modi government has operated. She said history would indeed remember Singh kindly as a quiet, gentle, but a most consequential prime minister.
In a swipe at Prime Minister Modi, Gandhi said since he is these days “forgiving” India’s students for attacking him, perhaps he can take this opportunity to forgive himself for his undignified slander against Singh.
The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson said the judgment brings to a conclusion one of the most tragic arcs of our public discourse — “the witch-hunt against Dr Singh, a man of the most remarkable probity and integrity.”
“The date July 29, 2026, was an important but unacknowledged day in our recent political history as in a remarkable judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the CBI’s clean chit to Dr. Manmohan Singh in the alleged coal block allocation scam,” Ms. Gandhi said.
“More importantly, it pulled up the trial court for rejecting the CBI’s closure reports and making adverse observations against the former prime minister for no ‘compelling reason’,” she pointed out.
“Its purpose has been to exert pressure on politicians. Leaders are either silenced through coercion or cynically folded into the BJP or, in some remarkable instances, rewarded with ministerial positions as well.
“When credible accusations of corruption emerge, the Modi government simply brushes them aside. Corrupt when you’re in the Opposition, suddenly clean when you jump ship!” Ms. Gandhi said.
It is not a coincidence that Modi was also among the most vocal proponents of the attack on Singh, she said.
“His snide and atrocious remarks in the Rajya Sabha on February 8, 2017, that only Dr. Singh knew ‘the art of bathing with a raincoat on’, will go down as the lowest point of our parliamentary history,” she said.
Since Mr. Modi is these days “forgiving” India’s students for attacking him, perhaps he can take this opportunity to forgive himself for his “undignified slander” against Singh, she said.
“Introspection, like charity, must begin from home. Ultimately, the attack on Dr. Singh was motivated by a desperate desire to shift the public conversation and narrative away from his outstanding governance record,” she said.
Manmohan Singh’s government heralded profound economic change with unprecedented rates of growth and a consumption and private investment boom that propelled India into the ranks of middle-income countries, Gandhi stressed.
In 2008, when the global economy faced turbulence and collapse, India demonstrated its resilience, she said.
“Let us not forget that in spite of the reworking of how the growth of India’s GDP is calculated, the 10 years of the UPA government saw higher economic growth than the past 12 years, resulting in millions being pulled out of poverty,” Ms. Gandhi said.
The Manmohan Singh government delivered on the constitutional promise of a Right to Education and expanded social justice through the introduction of OBC reservation in centrally-funded higher education institutes like the IITs and IIMs, she said.
“The Forest Rights Act recognised the ancestral rights of our Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities, after a decades-long struggle. The MGNREGA, recently demolished by the Modi government, was the most powerful social security intervention set up anywhere,” she said.
Another signature achievement of Singh’s government was the National Food Security Act, 2013, which identified and guaranteed access to basic food rations for crores of families, she said.
Civil society emerged as a force to be reckoned with, and our students had the freedom to protest against the government and even the Prime Minister, without being fired upon by metallic pellet guns or AK-47s, Ms. Gandhi said, taking a swipe at the Modi government.
The Prime Minister regularly made himself accountable to Parliament and to the media through 100-plus unscripted press conferences, she said.
“And of course, we cannot forget that the landmark and path-breaking Indo-U.S.. nuclear deal, which overturned decades of nuclear discrimination against and denial towards India and marked our arrival on the global stage, was possible because of his political courage and sustained initiative,” she said.
The “mischievous and indefensible” allegations against his integrity have been exposed as hollow, and his record as Prime Minister is increasingly being recognised for what it was — a period of decisive economic, political, and social advancement in Indian history, she said.
“We all certainly regret that he is not here to see this day and to guide the nation with his wisdom. But it is a solace to us all that his prophetic prediction of January 2014 is becoming increasingly self-evident with every passing day.
“History will indeed remember him kindly as a quiet, gentle but a most consequential Prime Minister,” Ms. Gandhi said.
Her remarks come after the Supreme Court closed the criminal case against Singh by setting aside a summoning order passed against him. The veteran Congress leader, who passed away on December 27, 2024, now stands formally acquitted in the high-profile criminal case. (Agencies)
