Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Amid growing pressure over the publication of a damning report on Manmohan Singh and the UPA government, The Washington Post on Wednesday said that PM’s clarification will also be published.
However, the newspaper has refused to apologize for the story titled ‘India’s silent Prime Minister becomes a tragic figure’ in which the 79-year-old Singh was described as someone who helped set India on the path to modernity, prosperity and power, but now is in danger of going down in history as a failure.
Washington Post journalist Simon Denyer said, "We have nothing to apologise. We stand by the article. Yes we did not have the PM`s version. I contacted the PMO for an interview in July but was denied. They knew that the story was coming."
However, sources in the PMO claimed that the newspaper has expressed regret over the article.
Referring to the slew of corruption scandals that have surfaced during his tenure as PM, the daily opined that Manmohan Singh’s image of the scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government.
“The story of Singh’s dramatic fall from grace in his second term in office and the slow but steady tarnishing of his reputation has played out in parallel with his country’s decline on his watch. As India’s economy has slowed and as its reputation for rampant corruption has reasserted itself, the idea that the country was on an inexorable road to becoming a global power has increasingly come into question,” the paper said.
While the Congress expressed regret over the publication of the article, the BJP used the opportunity to slam the PM for his alleged indecisiveness.
