New Delhi: As prime minister, Manmohan Singh was "thousand times" better than Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, who was a key leader of the massive anti-graft movement against the UPA government in 2011, said on Friday.
Calling him a "good man", Kejriwal said it was Singh who shielded India from the global economic recession in 2008 by taking a series of timely measures.
"Manmohan Singh is a good man. He was thousand times better than Modi.
He is an educated man, an economist of repute. He understands the economy," he told PTI in an interview. "In fact in late 2008, when there was global economic depression, India was perhaps the only country which was not impacted by it as Singh took a series of measures and saved the country," Kejriwal added.
Kejriwal along with Anna Hazare had led a massive anti-graft agitation against UPA II between 2011 and 2013 when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister.
A section in the Congress feels that the movement hit Congress's image paving way for Modi to capture power in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In late 2012, Kejriwal and a number of other leaders of the movement announced the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party to fight the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections while Hazare had decided not to join them.
Asked about strong views by several Congress leaders about him as the anti-graft movement damaged the UPA politically, paving the way for Modi to capture power in 2014, Kejriwal said if the demand of a Lokpal was met, then the AAP would not have even born. "Our movement was against the corruption of the UPA government.
Our movement was for Lokpal bill. Why did not the Congress bring the bill. If they did it, our movement would not have continued and Congress would have got a huge credit. If that was the situation, then AAP would not have even been formed," said Kejriwal.
About Modi, Kejriwal said his return to power would be "bad" for India. The Delhi chief minister alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "totally failed" in delivering anything in any of the key sectors and that is why he has been resorting to "fake nationalism".
"Modi-ji's nationalism is fake. It dangerous for the country," he said. "He is using the armed forces to get votes as he does not have any work to show," he alleged. Kejriwal alleged Modi has been "influencing" people's mind through the media, large section of which, he said, the prime minister has captured by "inflicting fear", or by greed.
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