Manmohan Singh's lacklustre governance paved way for demonetisation: S Gurumurthy

Political commentator S Gurumurthy on Tuesday slammed the two UPA regimes from 2004-2014 under former PM Manmohan Singh for country's economic woes.

Chennai, Nov 30: Recently, the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke on the adverse impact of demonetisation in the Rajya Sabha.

Demonetisation, hailed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "masterstroke" by his supporters, was labelled as an "organised loot and legalised plunder" and "monumental mismanagement" by Singh.

Days later, political commentator S Gurumurthy on Tuesday slammed the two UPA regimes from 2004-2014 under Singh for country's economic woes.

Speaking at the 13th Nani Palkhivala Memorial lecture, organised by the School of Law, SASTRA University, Chennai, Gurumurthy accused that Singh's governance was lacklustre.

"The lacklustre governance in the past under Manmohan Singh had set the tone for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monumental decision on November 8," he said.

Gurumurthy added that growth of the economy for six years from 2004 was superficial with the creation of a meagere 27 lakh jobs and the current account deficit at 101 billion dollars.

The political pundit lauded Modi over demonetisation issue.

[Also Read: It's not PM Modi, Manmohan Singh is the 'big daddy' of economics]

The effect that demonetisation has had on counterfeit money and terror funding has largely gone unreported, said Gurumurthy.

"If this decision had not been made now, the cash in circulation would have gone up from 17 lakh crore to 30 lakh crore in the next five years, leading to a meltdown," he added.

Gurumurthy predicted "an inevitable slow down" in growth for the next six months.

However, he added that the country would gain in qualitative terms.

"The law and order situation will improve as demonetisation has hit terror funding and counterfeit currency."

OneIndia News