Taking a stand which is at variance with his party’s national leadership, Madhya Pradesh BJP President Mr Prabhat Jha on Saturday disapproved of ‘Time’ magazine’s criticism of Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh.

“No foreign magazine has a right to look down upon the Prime Minister of India,” Mr Jha said while talking to reporters here.

The BJP leader said that there can be ideological differences with the Prime Minister but these will be dealt within the country.

Mr Jha recalled that when Mr Singh became Prime Minister in 2004, the same magazine had lauded him and expressed the hope that India would achieve high economic growth rate under his leadership.

He said it must not be forgotten that America uses magazines like ‘Time’ to conduct its “ideological warfare“.

’Time’ had flayed Mr Singh and the UPA-II Government for failing to act at a time when India’s growth was slowing down.

The international publication had dubbed the economist-PM as an “underachiever.”

BJP used the magazine’s latest issue to attack the Prime Minister and his Government. “It is sad that India is perceived as the one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Dr Manmohan Singh’s Government is the most corrupt,” BJP spokesperson Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad said early this week.

“Definitely, he is not an achiever.... All that he has achieved is corruption, scam and bad governance,” another BJP spokesperson Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said.

Interestingly, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and BJP leader Mr Shivraj Singh Chouhan, too, had dismissed the magazine’s criticism of the PM, saying “we do not need a certificate from a foreign media publication for our Prime Minister.”

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