New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday as he called him as a ‘paradoxical Prime Minister’ accusing him of trying to destroy institutions across the country, during the book launch of Shashi Tharoor’s ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi and his India’.
Speaking at the event, Manmohan Singh stated that PM Modi has failed the mandate given to him by the people of this country in 2014 before calling him as a ‘paradoxical PM’. He said:
“In 2014, Narendra Modi was elected 14th prime minister of India on the back of many lofty promises he made to the people of India. In the past four years, Modiji and his government have failed the electorate and eroded their voters’ faith.”
He then went onto rake up the topic of the CBI and other institutions across the country, accusing PM Modi and his government of trying to meddle in every matter and curb out the academic freedom.
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“He (Modi) has spoken of being a Prime minister for all Indians but the government he presides over has been mostly silent in the face of widespread communal violence, mob lynching and cow vigilantism. At the same time, academic freedoms are being sought to be curbed. The environment in our universities and national institutions like the CBI is being vitiated and dissent stifled,” Manmohan Singh added.
Manmohan Singh also praised Tharoor for his book, stating it is a ‘timely book, reminding us that the idea of India is under threat today from those who seek not just to rule India but to change India’s very heart and soul’.
Similar sentiments were echoed by former Home and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. At the very same event, when he was questioned about the ongoing CBI issue, he said:
“This is again an example of how institutions are being destroyed. It always had weaknesses: I am not denying that….A new government has to reinvent a Federal Bureau of Investigation or a Central Bureau of Investigation. This cannot be repaired. This cannot be put together again. You can say the same thing about the Central Information Commission. You can say the same thing about the Central Election Commission.”