Only shortcoming Manmohan Singh had, he was not propagandist like Modi: Sharma

New Delhi [India], Dec. 17 (ANI): Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior Congress leader and deputy leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma on Saturday said one of the "shortcomings of the UPA government was that its Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was not a propagandist, and did not market himself". "We were there for 10 years. We have, perhaps, many achievements to our credit may be many shortcomings and one of the greatest shortcomings was that we didn't have a prime minister who was his own propagandist, who was packaging and marketing himself. Dr. Manmohan could not do it, which was his failure on our part. We could not tell it to people what was given to India," Sharma said at 89th AGM FICCI meet in the national capital. "Let me tell you, we cannot ignore the fact that India was pegged at 480 billion dollars of GDP, by the time we left, it was 2.1 trillion dollar of GDP; we more than quadrupled in one decade with India becoming the first country in the world, since the first industrial revelation, to quadruple the GDP in 10 years. Even to double the GDP, Japan and South Korea became the first country to do it within a decade, China tripled it, but we quadrupled it, how can one forget this," he added. Sharma said the Congress was the original author of the GST Bill, Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "stealing" the credit. "We are not given the credit of passing of Insurance, GST, Bankruptcy and Insolvency bills. The government is showing that it is their achievement. We drafted these bills, and as an opposition party we supported for passing of these bills. They had just stolen it," he said. He said that these bills were stalled in parliament for seven years because of the erstwhile "irresponsible opposition". "For seven years the GST was not passed, the insolvency and bankruptcy bills were not passed, today they have been passed. You have not given us the credit, Congress is the author of everything. It was stalled because of an irresponsible opposition which is claiming the credit today, for what we started and made it possible as a responsible opposition party," he said. "If we had not decided, neither the GST nor the Insurance and nor the Insolvency Bill would have passed. Will you give us credit and acknowledge us honestly. Please do not heap accusations, allegations and insults, we all are Indians this is our country irrespective of whether we are in opposition or in government," he added. Sharma also took strong umbrage to Prime Minister Modi's remark on Indira Gandhi saying, the former prime minister did not demonetise when she was in power. "Indira Gandhi made India the nuclear power. Under Indira Gandhi, India became the sixth nuclear power, it became the fifth military power. We are celebrating her centenary, but what was said about Indira Gandhi yesterday," he said. "Instead of remembering that leadership, who was referred to as none other than by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as 'Durga'. It actually shocked me that a day was chosen to insult the memory of the tallest leader of a world of the time, but we leave wisdom or lack of it to those who embrace it," he added. (ANI)