Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today launched a scathing attack on the Modi government, saying the past was continually being rewritten to promote a "highly biased and communal view" and dissent was being suppressed.
In an uncharacteristic hard-hitting speech at a convention here, Singh said institutions of democracy were "under threat" and the edifice of welfare state was being "dismantled".
He also questioned BJP government's claims on economic development, saying rural India was under acute distress and the economic recovery was fragile.
"Institutions of Democracy are under threat. The entire edifice of the welfare state is now being dismantled in the guise of promoting faster economic growth, whereas they are two sides of the same coin.
"The past is continually being rewritten to promote a highly biased and communal view... Dissent is being suppressed," Singh said in his address at the convention organised by NSUI, the student wing of the Congress.
The Congress party, he said, has tried hard to ensure that India flourishes as an open pluralistic, liberal and secular democracy which was proud of its composite heritage.
"This very idea of India is now under systematic assault. We must understand how this assault is being mounted and then come up with our response," he said.
A renowned economist, Singh also raised the issue of government's performance on economy to attack it, saying that even government's own people felt that the recovery is "fragile".
"In the last one year, BJP government has to manufacture, modify some statistical data to show that this last one year has not been that bad for the economy. But their people are of the view that the recovery that they talk about in the last one year is very fragile recovery," Singh said.
He said the Chief Economic Advisor of the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, have both been of the view that "recovery is fragile".
"And indeed if you look at the harsh reality you will find all is not well with the state of our economy under the BJP dispensation," he added.
