Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has picked Manmohan Singh and Yashwant Sinha as two of the ‘best finance ministers’ the country has seen.
“I think there is a tussle in my view between Dr Manmohan Singh and Yashwant Sinha. Yashwant Sinha from the NDA and Dr Manmohan Singh, of course, from the early Congress,” Rajan told YouTuber Raj Shamani on the latter’s the ‘Figuring Out’ podcast.
Why Manmohan Singh?
This, Rajan said, is because as the finance minister to then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao, Singh did the big liberalisation in the early 90s.
“That was a time of tremendous change. I think it took that combination of Dr Narasimha Rao (former prime minister), who facilitated the political environment and Dr Manmohan Singh who laid out the specific reforms. I think that was spectacular. And it set the pace for growth subsequently,” the ex-RBI governor noted.
In 2004, Singh, a Congress veteran, became the country’s first Sikh prime minister; under him, the party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won a re-election in 2009. In 2014, however, the party was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Singh has been away from public eye since then.
Why Yashwant Sinha?
As the finance minister to then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sinha presided over a ‘period of reforms,’ Rajan said.
He added: “The question was did we need anymore (reforms). And he kept pushing. He kept saying we are not done, we need to do more. And you know things like simplifying the tax system, he pushed for privatisation because he said we occupy too much position in the state…maybe even privatising the banks.”
Sinha, who served two terms as Vajpayee’s finance minister, left the BJP in 2018, and joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2021. Last year, he was the joint Opposition’s candidate for the presidential election, but lost to Droupadi Murmu, the nominee of the BJP-led ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Rajan on P Chidambaram
An ex-finance minister who narrowly missed out on Rajan’s ‘list’ was Congress’ P Chidambaram, who, the former remarked, did ‘the dream budget during the coalition (UPA) government.’
