Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Breaking his silence, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said he has not used public office to enrich myself, family or friends.
His comments came in the wake of former TRAI Chairman Pradip Baijal's allegations that Singh had warned him of harm if he did not cooperate on 2G telecom licenses.
Baijal has also alleged that the CBI wanted him to "implicate" Arun Shourie and Ratan Tata in the case.
Asserting that many of UPA's programmes were being repackaged and marketed as initiatives of the BJP government, Singh said, "What the BJP had opposed when we were in power are now being sold as its contribution".
Rejecting criticism of "policy paralysis" in the UPA, he said when his government left, India was the second fastest growing economy in the world and noted there was a "fragileness" in economic recovery under the current dispensation.
"The past is continuously being rewritten to promote a highly biased and communal view. Dissent is being suppressed," Singh said.
In his self-published book, "The Complete Story of Indian Reforms: 2G, Power and Private Enterprise - A Practitioner's Diary', Baijal, who was appointed head of the telecom watchdog by the NDA government in 2003, said the 2G scam trail began under UPA's Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran.
This is the third book in last more than a year that has come to haunt Singh and his government about state of affairs during his regime.
The first book was written by his aide and media advisor Sanjaya Baru and another by former coal secretary P C Parakh who is also an accused in the case relating to coal blocks allocation.
With Agency Inputs
