History will be kinder to me: The moment when graceful Manmohan Singh deftly handled volley of questions

Manmohan Singh, while addressing a press conference in 2014, said, "history will be kinder to me", asserting that his leadership is not weak as projected.

In one of his most famous statements, former PM Manmohan Singh before demitting office as the prime minister in 2014 had said,  "history will be kinder to me", asserting that his leadership was not as weak as projected at that time. In what can be termed his last press conference as the Prime Minister, the former PM said in 2014, "I do not believe that I have been a weak Prime Minister." 

He added, "I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or for that matter the Opposition in Parliament. Given the political compulsions, I have done the best I could do. I have done as well as I could do according to the circumstances." 

Here's what the former PM said

He was responding to a volley of questions regarding criticism that his leadership was "weak" and he was not decisive on many occasions.

Singh had also chosen the press conference to launch a blistering attack on BJP's then prime ministerial candidate Modi and referred to the 2002 Gujarat riots under the Chief Minister.

The BJP at that time had projected Modi as a strong leader while targeting Singh over the issue of "weak" leadership in the run-up to the next Lok Sabha polls.

"If you measure the strength of Prime Minister by presiding over mass massacre of innocent citizens on streets of Ahmedabad, then I do not believe in it. I do not think that this kind of strength this country needs least from its Prime Minister," Singh had said.

"I have full confidence that the next Prime Minister will be from the UPA. It will be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. I sincerely believe what Narendra Modi is saying is not going to materialise," he had said.

Maintaining that his two terms as prime minister in UPA I and UPA II displayed the Congress's ability to run a coalition government and dispelled the perception that this party cannot run coalitions, Singh said though some compromises were made in the process, they were on "peripheral issues and not on national problems".

"Nobody has asked me to step down because of any inadequacy that characterised my tenure as prime minister," was his response when asked about "negative" perceptions within Congress about his leadership.

(With agency inputs)

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