“I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in Parliament,” former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh famously said at his last press conference in office in January 2014. The context was unrelenting attacks on his government over alleged corruption cases by the then opposition and the media.
On July 29, Singh’s words rang true. The Supreme Court gave the former prime minister a clean chit in the coal block allocation case.
On Tuesday, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said Singh’s record of integrity and accountability stood in stark contrast to the way the Narendra Modi government has operated.
She said history would indeed remember Singh kindly as a quiet, gentle, but most consequential prime minister.
The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson said the judgment brings to a conclusion one of the most tragic arcs of our public discourse — “the witch-hunt against Dr Singh, a man of the most remarkable probity and integrity.”
“The lobby against him was coordinated and well-organised, with actors stretching from the bureaucracy to the media, the judiciary, civil society, and most certainly to the RSS and BJP. Today, their bogus crusade has come to its inevitable conclusion of nothingness. Dr Singh has been vindicated on every count,” Gandhi said in her article published in The Indian Express.
“The date July 29, 2026, was an important but unacknowledged day in our recent political history as in a remarkable judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the CBI’s clean chit to Dr Manmohan Singh in the alleged coal block allocation scam, Gandhi said.
Her remarks come after the top court closed the criminal case against Singh by setting aside a summoning order passed against him. The veteran Congress leader, who passed away on December 27, 2024, now stands formally acquitted in the high-profile criminal case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with former PM Manmohan Singh. File Photo
It is not a coincidence that the current Prime Minister was also among the most vocal proponents of the attack on Singh, she said.
“His snide and atrocious remarks in the Rajya Sabha on February 8, 2017, that only Dr Singh knew ‘the art of bathing with a raincoat on’, will go down as the lowest point of our parliamentary history,” she said.
More importantly, it pulled up the trial court for rejecting the CBI’s closure reports and making adverse observations against the former prime minister for no “compelling reason”, she pointed out.
Singh’s record of integrity and accountability stands in stark contrast to how the Narendra Modi government has operated, so clearly and grossly misusing agencies designed to investigate crime and corruption like the ED and the CBI, she said.
“Its purpose has been to exert pressure on politicians. Leaders are either silenced through coercion or cynically folded into the BJP or, in some remarkable instances, rewarded with ministerial positions as well.
“When credible accusations of corruption emerge, the Modi government simply brushes them aside. Corrupt when you’re in the Opposition, suddenly clean when you jump ship!” Gandhi said.
“Ultimately, the attack on Dr Singh was motivated by a desperate desire to shift the public conversation and narrative away from his outstanding governance record,” she said.
Manmohan Singh’s government heralded profound economic change with unprecedented rates of growth and a consumption and private investment boom that propelled India into the ranks of middle-income countries, Gandhi stressed.
Sonia Gandhi has listed GDP growth, Right to Education, social justice, rural jobs scheme MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, Forest Rights Act as some of the policy initiatives by the Manmohan Singh government that made lasting impact on the lives of Indians.
Takign a swipe at the Modi government, she pointed out Manmohan Singh’s connect with civil society and his dealing of student protests contrasting it with today’s regime. “Civil society emerged as a force to be reckoned with, and our students had the freedom to protest against the government and even the prime minister, without being fired upon by metallic pellet guns or AK-47s.”
The prime minister regularly made himself accountable to Parliament and to the media through 100-plus unscripted press conferences, she said.
“And of course, we cannot forget that the landmark and path-breaking Indo-US nuclear deal, which overturned decades of nuclear discrimination against and denial towards India and marked our arrival on the global stage, was possible because of his political courage and sustained initiative,” she said.
The “mischievous and indefensible” allegations against his integrity have been exposed as hollow, and his record as prime minister is increasingly being recognised for what it was — a period of decisive economic, political, and social advancement in Indian history, she said.
“We all certainly regret that he is not here to see this day and to guide the nation with his wisdom. But it is a solace to us all that his prophetic prediction of January 2014 is becoming increasingly self-evident with every passing day.
“History will indeed remember him kindly as a quiet, gentle but a most consequential prime minister,” Gandhi said.
