Dr Manmohan Singh, one of India’s finest economists, held the post of Finance Minister in the Congress-led Government headed by PV Narasinha Rao in June 1991. That was just a month after Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991. P V Narasimha Rao took oath as the Prime Minister of a minority government amidst massive political uncertainty over its survival. The Congress had got only 232 seats as against the majority of 272 in the Lok Sabha elections in 1991, in a House of 543 MPs.
The outgoing government of Prime Minister, Chandrashekhar saw India’s foreign exchange reserves dipping to its lowest point and the situation was desperate as investors were losing confidence. The PV Narasimha Rao government had to agree to devalue the rupee as per the IMF-World Bank prescription. The first phase of 9 per cent was announced on July 1. This was followed on July 3 by another 10 per cent devaluation. It was a tumultuous period for India and Narasimha Rao had to face the flak from his own Congress MPs, the BJP and the Left parties. But he dealt with the dissidents adroitly and it was in these circumstances that Finance Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh presented what would be a budget for the economic liberalisation of India. Dr Singh had the full backing of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao who stood by Dr Singh even when criticised by senior Congress colleagues like Arjun Singh, M K Fotedar and Natwar Singh and NKP Salve. Dr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, with the full support of the Prime Minister spearheaded several liberalisation reforms such as deregulation, reduction of import tariffs, and privatisation of state-owned enterprises. In his maiden Budget speech in 1991, Manmohan Singh quoted Victor Hugo, “No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” It was his vision and policies that stabilised India’s economy and even paved the way for sustained growth.
In 2004, Dr Manmohan Singh became what many call the accidental Prime Minister after the Congress-led UPA Government won an unexpected victory in the elections. Sonia Gandhi was elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party but did not take up the Prime Ministerial post. She instead made way for Dr Manmohan Singh who was a Rajya Sabha member from Assam to take charge as Prime Minister. Perhaps what marred the tenure of Prime Ministership Manmohan Singh were the series of scams that erupted in the coal allocation, 2G spectrum and the Commonwealth Games. At the time Dr Manmohan Singh seemed like a weak prime minister unable to keep a check on the scams even while the UPA-2 government seemed rudderless. It was perhaps the listlessness of the UPA-2 government which in a sense catapulted Narendra Modi and the BJP into the political firmament. Modi seemed like the perfect anti-thesis to Dr Manmohan Singh for filling the vacuum of governance created by the UPA-2 Government. Politics is the most challenging task and who better than Dr Manmohan Singh would know this, having transitioned from a bureaucrat economist into a politician. But he will always be remembered for taking India on a progressive economic trajectory.
