Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday underlined the goings-on at the National Stock Exchange during UPA’s tenure while hitting out at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his criticism of the BJP’s handling of the country’s economy.
Referring to the revelations about former NSE MD Chitra Ramkrishna having taken guidance of a “Himalayan Yogi” when running the country’s biggest stock exchange, the Finance Minister said the former PM was not even aware of how the bourse was being run for so long when he was in power.
“I have great regard for you (Manmohan Singh) I did not expect this from you,” said Sitharaman, reacting to the former PM’s criticism of the economy.
The Congress had, earlier in the day, released a video message from the former PM for the voters of poll-bound States of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur in which he expressed anxiety over the state of the economy.
“Due to the short-sighted policies of the central government amid the fury of Corona on the one hand, people are facing hardships due to deteriorating economy, rising inflation and unemployment, and, on the other hand, our present-day rulers, even after running the government for seven-and-a-half years, are in denial mode and instead of accepting their mistakes and correcting them, are busy in trying to blame our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the same,” said Singh, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attack on the Congress while participating in the reply to the President’s address in Parliament recently.