His reaction came after former Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said after the Rahul Gandhi ordinance-trashing episode of 2013, Singh had asked him whether he thought he should resign as prime minister.
Former Prime Minister and Congress leader Manmohan Singh. (File Photo: IANS)
The grand old Congress party has rejected former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s submission that then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to quit after Rahul Gandhi tore the Ordinance, proposed by the UPA government.
Congress chief Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “We are not privy to conversation that took place between the two person (Singh and Ahluwalia), but we can say Rahul Gandhi has said he considered Manmohan Singh his guru. Thus, there is no question of disrespecting Singh.”
His reaction came after former Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said after the Rahul Gandhi ordinance-trashing episode of 2013, Singh had asked him whether he thought he should resign as prime minister.
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Hailing Rahul Gandhi’s vision, Surjewala said the Supreme Court had now asked the parties to place in the public domain the reason behind nominating a tainted person. “It vindicates Rahul Gandhi’s stand,” he said.
The Congress said when all the political parties were in agreement to go ahead with the Ordinance, Rahul Gandhi tried to change the course because he wanted “the Ganges of politics to be clean”.
Singh, while returning home from the US, had ruled out his resignation though he appeared piqued over the entire episode.
Gandhi had denounced the controversial ordinance brought by the UPA dispensation to negate a Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers. He had termed it as “complete nonsense” that should be “torn up and thrown away”.
“I was part of the PM’s delegation in New York and my brother Sanjeev, who had retired from the IAS, telephoned to say he had written a piece that was very critical of the PM. He had emailed it to me and said he hoped I didn’t find it embarrassing,” recalled Ahluwalia.
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