Shiv Sena Backs Manmohan Singh On Economic Slowdown; Asks BJP To Listen To His Advice

Sena, in an editorial in Saamana, said that the national interest lies in heeding to Manmohan Singh’s advice and that there should not be politics around the economic affairs of the country.

Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray (Source: PTI)

New Delhi: BJP’s ally in Maharashtra Shiv Sena, on Wednesday, backed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his recent remark on the economic slowdown in country, in an editorial published in its mouthpiece Saamana, and asked the BJP government to pay heed to his warning. In a video statement on Sunday, Singh said the state of the economy was 'deeply worrying' and that "all-round mismanagement" by the Modi government has resulted in this slowdown. Blaming the government of "vendetta politics", he said: "I urge the government to put aside vendetta politics and reach out to all sane voices and thinking minds, to steer our economy out of this man-made crisis,” he said. Though BJP dismissed Singh’s statement, Sena said in the editorial that the national interest lies in heeding to Manmohan Singh’s advice and that there should not be politics around the economic affairs of the country.” It said that words of someone like Manmohan Singh, who been associated with country's economy for 35 years, cannot be ignored. It hit out at its alliance partner BJP and said that in the last few years the party has only focussed on winning elections, horse-trading, while the country’s economy slipped to doldrums. It also trained guns at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and said that the first female finance minister of the country rules out the fears of economic slowdown and believes that all is well. The discourse around economic slowdown was triggered after the country reported a slow GDP growth rate of 5 per cent for the first quarter of this fiscal. Sharp deceleration in manufacturing output and subdued farm sector activity pulled down India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth to over six-year low of 5 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2019-20.