Here is the edited transcript of his interview with CNBC-TV18
Q: Your government has fought one political battle after the other and that is not all, one economic battle after the other. One year before the elections, elections are thought on top of the mind recall and for this government top of the mind recall is inflation and instability. Do you think you have lost the election even before it is fought?
A: That is not true at all because when people evaluate the performance of a government, they do on five parameters. The first parameter is political stability; over the past nine years the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has given political stability to this country. The second parameter is social cohesion; we have ensured in the past nine years that 2002 never gets repeated in any part of the country.
The third is internal security and if you look at the internal security situation whether it is in Jammu & Kashmir, whether it is in the north east or for that matter it is even in the Left wing extremist areas, it has improved economic development.
This is the only government, which during the 11th Five Year Plan period delivered 8.2 percent growth straddling UPA I, UPA II when the entire world was combating the worst ever depression that we have seen after the 1930s and the fifth is the international profile of India. Look what has happened with Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC), look what has happened with the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Therefore, I think when people evaluate the performance of a government, they do not go by hysterical sensational discourse, which only focuses a negativism and is not critical, but corrosive at most of the time with the national spirit and so therefore I think as we stand, we stand fairly well poised.
Q: It is interesting that you brought 8 percent because growth at this point in time is at 4.5 percent, it was struggling to do even 6 percent, but even more interesting is the fact that you brought up 2002. Is that going to be the political strategy in this election and anti Modi campaign?
A: For us the chief minister of Gujarat is a non-issue. He maybe an issue for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh turns around and says that whenever people talk about Prime Ministerial ambitions they reduce the BJP to a laughing stock and as I jokingly keep telling my friends you have lurking Prime Ministerial ambitions, sulking Prime Ministerial ambitions, closeted the Prime Ministerial ambition in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Therefore, for us individual in Bharatiya Janata Party is a non-issue. However, the fundamental fault line in this country is secularism qua communism and those who believe in pluralism, those who believe in the idea of India as it was conceived by the founding father know which side of the divide to weigh in all.
Q: In your own party are Prime Ministerial ambitions not cloaked, so are you saying that this is going to be a Rahul Gandhi versus Modi battle or you are saying that Modi is not an issue at all. Who is going to be your Prime Ministerial candidate and if it is Rahul Gandhi, is it going to be Rahul Gandhi versus Modi?
A: I think you have misread the situation. In so far as the Congress is concerned, what I refer to as "The Holy Trinity". You have the Congress President you led the Congress Party in the UPA very successfully; the Congress for 15 years, the UPA for the last nine years.
You have a Prime Minister who is globally respected, who has delivered on governance in the past nine year and then you have Rahul Gandhi who has now taken charge of the party and is rejuvenating it and reinvigorating it.
So, therefore we have a leadership which blends experience with youth, which is not jingoistic, which is not I, Me, Myself all the time, believes in empowerment of people as a whole so therefore that is what we are going to go to the people with.
Q: So is this trinity going to continue. Are you saying that third term for Manmohan Singh?
A: I am not going to be drawn into that debate for the simple reason that we are still one year from the elections and as we speak today since you brought up the 5 percent growth number and yes, it is true we have been caught in the backlash of the great economic depression, which hit the world in 2008 or the global meltdown as it was called.
So, therefore we are trying to surmount that. therefore, our eyes are focused on economic consolidation seeing that projects which have got staled, those get underway in critical areas of the economy whether it is the oil and gas sector, whether it is coal whether it is mining, we are able to kick start economic activity and ensure that the broader security situation and social cohesion remains on track. So, that is what our priority is.
Q: I understand that the government is trying with the CCI and other reform measures to get growth back on track, but on the ground you are not seeing that growth. Q4 earnings are expected to be the worst in the last one year and the fact is that investors despite the Current Account Deficit (CAD) of 6.7 percent and the necessity for them to come are still seeing political uncertainty as the key obstacle to coming into the country. How do you address that?
A: Let me make one thing very clear to you. There is absolutely no political instability. If you see the media speculation and the frenzy and the tizzy that we go into at times drawing up those charts about how numbers are stacked up, has anybody of any gravitas in the political system ever questioned the stability of the government and the answer is clearly no.
People in politics who run coalitions over the last two decades understand that people of India do not reward those who create instability. So this government is here to stay. We will stay the course till 2014 and on the strength of our achievements we will go to the people.
Q: An economic consolidation and economic growth is going to be the political strategy?
A: If you look at the Budget and since it was the penultimate or maybe the ultimate Budget, because at times you present an interim Budget before the general elections, if populism was the way we wanted to go then the trajectory of this Budget would have been very different, but the finance minister very cautiously chose to exercise prudence, he chose to exercise conservatism over populism and presented a Budget which was clearly focused on ensuring that we return to the high growth trajectory of 8-9 percent.
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