In the wake of the Supreme Court’s posthumous exoneration of former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation case, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said history would “indeed remember him kindly as a quiet, gentle but a most consequential Prime Minister”.
Writing in a national newspaper, Gandhi framed the July 29 apex court order — which upheld the CBI’s closure report and set aside a 2015 trial court summons against Singh — as the final chapter in what she called a prolonged “witch-hunt” against a leader of “remarkable probity and integrity”.
She said the campaign against Singh was systematic and multi-layered. “The lobby against him was coordinated and well-organised, with actors stretching from the bureaucracy to the media, the judiciary, civil society, and most certainly to the RSS and BJP. Today, their bogus crusade has come to its inevitable conclusion of nothingness. Dr Singh has been vindicated on every count,” Gandhi said in her article.
Calling July 29, 2026 a landmark but under-acknowledged moment, she noted: “The date July 29, 2026, was an important but unacknowledged day in our recent political history as in a remarkable judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the CBI’s clean chit to Dr Manmohan Singh in the alleged coal block allocation scam. More importantly, it pulled up the trial court for rejecting the CBI’s closure reports and making adverse observations against the former Prime Minister for no ‘compelling reason’.”
Gandhi argued that Singh’s ethical record sharply highlighted what she described as the misuse of investigative agencies under the current dispensation. “Singh’s record of integrity and accountability stands in stark contrast to how the Narendra Modi government has operated, so clearly and grossly misusing agencies designed to investigate crime and corruption like the ED and the CBI,” she said.
“Its purpose has been to exert pressure on politicians. Leaders are either silenced through coercion or cynically folded into the BJP or, in some remarkable instances, rewarded with ministerial positions as well,” she said. “When credible accusations of corruption emerge, the Modi government simply brushes them aside. Corrupt when you’re in the Opposition, suddenly clean when you jump ship!” Gandhi said.
She said it was no accident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the strongest voices in the campaign against Singh. “It is not a coincidence that Modi was also among the most vocal proponents of the attack on Singh,” she said.
Recalling a specific parliamentary attack, she wrote: “His snide and atrocious remarks in the Rajya Sabha on February 8, 2017, that only Dr Singh knew ‘the art of bathing with a raincoat on’, will go down as the lowest point of our parliamentary history,” she said.
“Introspection, like charity, must begin from home. Ultimately, the attack on Dr Singh was motivated by a desperate desire to shift the public conversation and narrative away from his outstanding governance record,” she said.
In a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said since he is these days ‘forgiving’ India’s students for attacking him, perhaps he can take this opportunity to forgive himself for his undignified slander against Singh.
Gandhi stressed that Singh’s tenure was defined by deep structural reforms and high growth. “Manmohan Singh’s government heralded profound economic change with unprecedented rates of growth and a consumption and private investment boom that propelled India into the ranks of middle-income countries,” Gandhi stressed. “In 2008, when the global economy faced turbulence and collapse, India demonstrated its resilience,” she said.
“Let us not forget that in spite of the reworking of how the growth of India’s GDP is calculated, the 10 years of the UPA government saw higher economic growth than the past 12 years, resulting in millions being pulled out of poverty,” Gandhi said.
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