Model denial

Finance Minister P Chidambaram is generally loath to being in the limelight, especially when it comes to policies concerning economic reforms that are by no means universally popular with members of Parliament. So, he made it a point to gracefully extricate himself from any association with Manmohan Singh’s economic policies in his reply to the discussion on the banking Bill in the Lok Sabha earlier this week. “One of the honourable members blamed what he described as the Manmohan-Chidambaran model,” he said in the face of frequent interruptions. “Please do not equate me with the prime minister. The prime minister is a distinguished economist; I am not. The prime minister has vast experience; I do not have. But the Manmohan model also showed to this country that we can achieve above nine per cent growth. The Manmohan model also showed to this country that we can reduce our fiscal deficit to below three per cent and it came to 2.7 per cent... Therefore, do not blame this model.”