Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on May 30 made a scathing attack on PM Modi, accusing him of using the most vicious form of hate speeches to target a specific section of society, adding that he is the first head of govt to lower the dignity of PM’s office.
In an open letter addressed to the voters in Punjab ahead of the seventh-phase of Lok Sabha polls, the former PM urged voters that they have “one final chance to ensure that democracy and our Constitution are protected from the repeated assaults of a despotic regime, trying to unleash dictatorship in India.”
Earlier, in one of his Lok Sabha campaign speeches, Modi had accused the Manmohan Singh-led government of saying that Muslims have the first right to wealth.
While campaigning in Rajasthan’s Banswara, PM Modi had said, “Congress’s manifesto says they will take stock of the gold mothers and daughters have, and will distribute that wealth. Manmohan Singh’s government had said Muslims have the first right to wealth. Brothers and sisters, this Urban Naxal thinking will not spare even the mangal sutras of my mothers and sisters.”
Singh, while responding to PM Modi's statement, said that he had “never distinguished one community from another”.
The veteran Congress leader, in a three-page letter, also said Narendra Modi is the first PM to have reduced the dignity of PM's office.
He alleged that PM Modi indulged in the “most vicious form of hate speeches that are purely divisive in nature”.
“No previous Prime Minister used such vile, unparliamentary and low-level language to target a particular section or opposition. They have also given me some wrong statements. I have never in my life distinguished one community from another. This is the special right and habit of BJP,” Singh said in the letter.
Notably, Varanasi, from where PM Modi is contesting, is also set to vote in the last phase.
Singh also talked about farmers’ protests noting that 750 famers mostly belonging to Punjab, were martyred while constantly waiting at Delhi borders for months together.
"As if the lathis and the rubber bullets were not enough, none less than the Prime Minister verbally assaulted our farmers by calling them "Andolanjeevis" and "Parjeevi" (parasites) on the floor of the Parliament. Their only demand was the withdrawal of the three farm laws imposed on them without consulting them," Singh said.
He further stated that in the last ten years, the nation's economy has witnessed unimaginable turmoil.
"The imposition of the demonetisation disaster, a flawed GST, and the painful mismanagement during the Covid pandemic has resulted in a miserable situation, where an expectation of a subpar 6-7 per cent GDP growth has become the new normal," the letter read.
Pointing out the “fake nationalism” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government through an “ill-conceived Agniveer scheme” on the Armed Forces, he said, "The BJP thinks that the value of patriotism, bravery and service is only four years. This shows their fake nationalism."
