NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday hit out at the Centre claiming that the government had only made false promises. Calling out a 'culture of constant self-praise and jumlas' by the Centre, the former PM compared the current government to the regime of the previous United Progressive Alliance government which he claimed had a 'solid policy framework for driving the engine of growth'.
"The claim of doubling farm income by 2022 will require an agriculture growth rate of 14 per cent, which is nowhere in sight," he said.
Speaking at the Congress Working Committee meeting, he also assured his support to party chief Rahul Gandhi who chaired the first meeting as the president on Sunday. "I assure Rahulji that we will fully support him on his onerous task of restoring India’s social harmony and economic development," Dr Singh said.
Earlier in the day, Rahul had also attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing it of oppressing the poor and Dalits. Urging party members to fight for India's poor, he described the Congress as the "voice of India".
Rahul said CWC - the party's highest decision-making body - had experience and energy and was a bridge between the past, present and future. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted: "Rahul Gandhi calls the newly constituted CWC as an institution comprising of experience & energy, as a bridge between the past, present and the future. Calls upon Congressmen/women to rise and fight for India’s oppressed."
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi also lent her support to Rahul while keeping up her attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government. "We are committed to make alliances work and we are all with him (Rahul Gandhi) in this endeavour. We have to rescue our people from a dangerous regime that is compromising the democracy of India," she said.
Referring to the current government as a “dangerous regime”, she said that democracy was being compromised."The rhetoric of Prime Minister Modi shows his desperation, reflecting that reverse countdown of Modi government had begun," she said.
Rahul had on July 17 constituted the CWC by appointing 23 members and dropping some senior leaders in a bid to strike a balance between age and experience and prepare for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Senior leaders like Digvijaya Singh, Janardan Dwivedi, Kamal Nath, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Karan Singh were dropped from the list.
However, the Congress president retained veterans like AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and Kumari Selja in the party's highest decision-making body. Besides Rahul, former party chief Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former Congress chief ministers Ashok Gehlot, Oomen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi, Siddharamaiah and Harish Rawat have also been included.
