With PM Manmohan Singh at Montek Ahluwalia’s home in the spring of 2000. He was the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha at the time. I was on my high horse at the time championing the telecom reform. Manmohan Singh was dead set against privatization of the industry at the time. I was surprised, given his liberalizer creds.
I later came to realize that he was not a liberalizer at all. He talked about inclusive growth as the PM and pushed NREGA as his main agenda. During his 10 years no liberalization happened, at least I cant recall any. And growth came crashing down. He preferred no growth to the non-inclusive growth. During Bajpai’s regime there was a liberalization galore: starting with telecom, airlines, financial sector, automobile sector, golden quadrilateral highway building program. I am sure my memory is not as good as it used to be so there must be more that I am missing.
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