Former prime minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh, 91, appealed to Punjab voters before voting Saturday in the final phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election - to make the most of a "final chance to ensure our democracy and Constitution are protected from repeated assaults by a despotic regime".
In a three-page open letter, the veteran Congress leader lamented the "unimaginable turmoil" in the Indian economy over the past decade - the two terms of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.
He said the Modi government left no stone unturned in castigating Punjabis.
Dr Singh - who was Finance Minister when Indian economy was liberalised in 1991.
"The imposition of the demonetisation disaster, a flawed GST (goods and service tax), and the painful mismanagement during the COVID pandemic has resulted in a miserable situation, where an expectation of subpar six to seven percent GDP growth has become the new normal.
"Average GDP growth under BJP government has plunged to under six per cent... during Congress-UPA tenure it was about eight per cent (New Series). Unprecedented unemployment and unbridled inflation have greatly widened inequality, which is now at a 100-year high," the former PM said.
On Farmers' Protest
Referring to farmers' protests that still haunt the centre - four years after a nationwide agitation by lakhs of agriculturists made headlines worldwide, and forced the BJP to roll back three controversial laws - he reproached the government for having "left no stone unturned in castigating Punjabis".
"As if the lathis and rubber bullets were not enough, the Prime Minister verbally assaulted our farmers by calling them 'parasites' on the floor of the Parliament," he said.
"Modiji had promised to double the income of our farmers by 2022 (but) his policies in the past 10 years have eroded the earnings... the national average monthly income of farmers is a meager ₹ 27 per day, while average debt per farmer is ₹ 27,000 (from government data)," Dr Singh said.
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