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When Manmohan met Modi: Who took whose class?

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Kumar Shakti Shekhar
Kumar Shakti ShekharMay 28, 2015 | 20:08

When Manmohan met Modi: Who took whose class?

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on May 28 took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said former prime minister Manmohan Singh took his class for one hour on May 27. Speaking at a convention of National Students’ Union of India in New Delhi, the student wing of the Congress, Rahul attacked Modi on economy and said: “Kal Manmohanji ne kaha economy down ja rahi hai, uske baad PM ne ek ghante ki paathshaala li hamare PMji se. (Yesterday, Manmohanji spoke about how the economy is sliding down. After which he gave an hour-long class to the PM.” Needless to say, this evoked a loud cheer from his party workers.

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Singh had met Modi at 7 Racecourse Road residence on May 27, just hours after launching a scathing attack on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s performance. Social media was abuzz with messages questioning Singh’s motive behind meeting the prime minister. Some alleged Singh had gone to curry favour from Modi as the former has been named an accused in the coal block allocation scam. Senior functionaries in the Congress, however, told this writer that Singh was carrying out his duty as a party leader by attacking the ruling dispensation in a party programme but went to meet Modi on an invitation as part of official decorum.

By making his controversial statements earlier today, was Rahul Gandhi trying to downplay the PR disaster that unfolded the previous day, or was he just being flippant?

And who took whose class? Let's take a closer look at how the sequence of events played out yesterday.

1. Manmohan attacks NDA: In his address to a convention organised by NSUI in the morning, the former prime minister presented a critique of the Modi government’s one year in power. In an uncharacteristic manner, he alleged, "Institutions of democracy are under threat. The entire edifice of the welfare state is now being dismantled in the guise of promoting faster economic growth, whereas they are two sides of the same coin…The past is continually being rewritten to promote a highly biased and communal view... Dissent is being suppressed."

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Singh also criticised the government's performance on economy and said even the government's own people felt that the recovery is "fragile". "In the last one year, the BJP government has had to manufacture, modify some statistical data to show that this last one year has not been that bad for the economy. But their people are of the view that the recovery that they talk about in the last one year is very fragile," Singh said.

2. BJP leadership strikes back: The ruling party at the Centre was quick to retort with BJP national president Amit Shah leading the charge. He launched a frontal attack on Singh and sought to remind the UPA of the corruption scams during its 10-year rule. “More than Rs 12 lakh crore was embezzled during Manmohan Singh's rule. How can the Congress escape that responsibility?" he told reporters in Gujarat.

The home minister, who was in Jammu, retorted that the UPA suffered from policy paralysis and credited Modi with taking the country from an inactive to an active mode. “In the past one year, the country has come to active mode from an inactive mode. Unlike Congress, which was in inactive and silent mode for the past ten years, the Narendra Modi government has been in active mode from the very first day it came to power,” he said.

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Even PM Modi took a dig at the Congress and said they have not been able to digest their defeat even after a year. “We thought they will learn from this, but it looks as though they are proving right the earlier saying that if con is the opposite of pro, then Congress is the opposite of progress,” he said.

3. Modi’s tweet: At 6.53 pm on Wednesday, Modi posted a photograph of his meeting with Singh, saying, “Very happy to meet Dr. Manmohan Singh ji & welcome him back to 7RCR. We had a great meeting.”

This tweet, sent out after the meeting, which started at 6.30 pm and lasted for less than half an hour, between the two, created a ripple in the political and media circles as throughout the day offensives and counter-offensives were being exchanged between the Congress and the BJP.

4. Statement from Singh’s office: The speculations were somewhat put to rest after the AICC released a statement at 10.09 pm from the former prime minister’s secretary GM Pillai, which read: “At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh met the prime minister today at 6.30pm at his residence, 7 Racecourse Road. They discussed the economic situation in the country and foreign policy issues.”

Last updated: May 28, 2015 | 20:08
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