NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh this week gave an hour-long lecture on handling the Indian economy to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed on Thursday.

He said Mr Modi invited Dr Singh for the hour-long lesson in how to run the economy.

“After Manmohanji said yesterday that the economy is going down, the PM invited him for an hour-long pathshala (class). Perhaps he tried to understand how the economy runs, I will ask Dr Singh,” NDTV news channel quoted Mr Gandhi as saying. Mr Gandhi was “smiling as he drew a roar of laughter from his audience, made up of members of the Congress students wing,” the channel said.

On Wednesday evening, Mr Modi met Dr Singh at the former’s Race Course Road residence in what was described by the Prime Minister’s Office as a courtesy call. Dr Singh’s office said the PM had invited Dr Singh to discuss the economy and foreign policy.

Hours earlier, Dr Singh had, in an uncharacteristically aggressive speech questioned the Modi government’s claims on economic development, saying rural India was in acute distress and that the economic recovery was “fragile”.

Now, a newly recharged Mr Gandhi ripped into Mr Modi and his BJP-led government’s reforms agenda alleging that it was “making mistake after mistake”.

“... why wait five years, see their record of the past one year,”Rahul Gandhi said of the PM’s pet initiative and exhorted his audience to “start spreading the word”.

He asked his cadres to counter what he called the ruling BJP’s attempt to “impose RSS ideology” in the country, saying, “Wherever they want to being RSS order, please take your Congress disorder there to stop them.”

Attacking the RSS for its famed discipline, Mr Gandhi said, “Discipline is an excuse for suppressing individuality.”

The Congress leader also brought up familiar themes in his recent speeches like PM Modi’s foreign visits, this time saying, “Modiji has visited even Mongolia, but he has not visited a farmer’s house.”

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2015

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