Manmohan gets down to brasstacks, describes Modi as dream merchant

Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is quite a contrast to his incumbent successor Narendra Modi. In his two terms in office, Dr Manmohan Singh had rarely spoken to the media fully or openly. Against this sorry background, Dr Manmohan Singh dared on Thursday to come out and say that the Modi government was in a shambles in regard to Pakistan. Terrorists from Pakistan were operating freely in Jammu and Kashmir and now in Punjab and neighbouring States. The recent attack on the Pathankot airbase was the latest instance of India's vulnerability, he said. In a wide-ranging attack on the Modi government during his Assam election campaign, Dr Singh said agriculture had in the last 2 years been stagnant, bringing further distress to farmers around the country. Industrial production had also been stagnant for the past 2 years. There was no sign of growth in employment. Exports had continued to decline month after month in the last 15 months. Describing Modi as a `dream merchant', Dr Singh said the Prime Minister had only been selling dreams. The list of his promises was endless. Some 20 million people have been made to open bank accounts by the BJP-led NDA regime, but people were asking what they would do with bank accounts when they had nothing to keep in the bank. Dr Singh warned that whenever the reins of power were given to a non-Congress party, the State suffered enormously. He urged the people of Assam to take the Congress to a new high.