Manmohan called note ban 'biggest scam of India'

Hailed as the architect of India's economic reforms, former prime minister Manmohan Singh in one his last interviews had said in 2019 that the country's economy was 'over-regulated', the government exerted control and interferences were aplenty with even regulators having 'morphed into controllers'.

Speaking to PTI in an exclusive interview on May 5, 2019, days before his successor Narendra Modi returned as the prime minister for the second consecutive term, Singh cited the then economic growth figures to suggest an impending slowdown.

He had also rued the 'growing interference' of courts in the economic policies, and said the Congress would have handled the economy differently.

Singh, who served as prime minister for two terms from 2004 to 2014, has been credited with spearheading India's economic reform process.

He had alleged that the lack of any vision or understanding of the country's dynamics of economy by the Narendra Modi-led government led to 'disruptive' decisions like demonetisation, which he had earlier dubbed as 'organised loot and legalised plunder'.

Singh had also said that people were 'fed up' with the daily rhetoric and cosmetic change by the current dispensation and there was an undercurrent against this 'illusion and boastful self aggrandizement'.

He noted that he had always welcomed scrutiny and accountability of government, as the same is intrinsic to democracy.

Claiming that he had initiated action against his own people even when allegations were made, Singh had said that the Modi government considered itself inscrutable and unaccountable to a litany of corruption allegations and preferred to brazen it out by often shooting the messenger.

The former prime minister claimed that this government came to power on the promise to usher in transparency and fight against corruption.

However, he said, in the last five years, "we have only witnessed the stench of corruption peaking to unimaginable proportions."

Demonetisation was perhaps the biggest scam of independent India, he had noted.

Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms and a consensus builder in the rough world of politics, died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, on Thursday night. He was 92.