Can't produce reforms like rabbits out of a hat: PM

Citing coalition compulsions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said economic reforms need to be in tune with the political climate of a country and cannot be produced like “rabbits out of a hat”. “I think we cannot produce the reforms like rabbits out of a hat. Reforms have to respond to the political climate, what is saleable, what I can sell to our coalition partners,” Singh told Fareed Zakaria of the CNN in an interview.

The prime minister was responding to a question that many of his admirers are disappointed about the slow pace of economic reforms in India.

“You know the compulsions of managing a coalition in which there are several parties, the Left parties. That, naturally, restrained our — constrained our ability to move forward,” the prime minister said .