)
The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today held his third and possibly his last press conference. Here are the key takeaways from the PM's speech:
1) "I will hand over the baton to a new Prime Minister after the general elections. The (Congress) Party will announce a Prime Ministerial candidate at the appropriate time."
2) "Without discussing the merits of Narendra Modi, I sincerely believe that it will be disastrous for the country to have Modi as the PM," Singh told the media, adding that strength was not presiding over mass massacre of citizens on the streets of Ahmedabad in 2002.
3) "Rahul Gandhi has outstanding credentials to be nominated as the prime ministerial candidate, and I hope our party will take that decision at the appropriate time."
4) "I do not believe that I am a weak prime minister. That is is for the historians to judge."
5) "We must collectively grapple with the task of dealing with corruption. This is not a matter which only one party can accomplish. Various political parties have to work together to deal with this monster."
6) "Reform is not an event, it is an process. We will continue to push forward the cause of reform."
7) "We have also not been as successful in controlling persistent inflation as we would have wished. This is primarily because food inflation has increased."
8) "I have done reasonably well, the growth process has been sustained despite global crisis, despite Eurozone crisis...five month is still a long period to revive the growth impulses of this country."
9) "Best moment for me was when we were able to strike a nuclear deal with the United States to end the nuclear apartheid which had sought to stifle the processes of social and economic change and technical progress of our country in many ways."
10) "Most of these charges of corruption relate to period of UPA-1. Coal block allocation and 2G spectrum allocations are in the era of UPA-1. we went to the electorate on the basis of our performance in UPA-1.The people of India gave us the mandate to rule. These issues raised by the media, CAG, courts were not of the UPA-2 and of the previous UPA regime and the fact that people of India voted us back shows that they do not beleive in any of these charges.
