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Party time for Manmohan's colleagues, students

Surjit Singh (right), brother of Prime Minister-designate Manmohan Singh, offering sweets to his sister Narinder Kaur, in Amritsar on Wednesday.

CHANDIGARH, MAY 19. It was celebration time for the students and teaching colleagues of senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh, who is set to become the Prime Minister, at Panjab University where he had taught for a decade.

``The nation deserves congratulation for choosing him to hold the key post at the national level,'' said the people associated with him in the university 37 years ago.

``He is fondly remembered as hardworking, soft and outspoken, a gentleman in whom it is very difficult to find faults,'' said Vinod Kumar Gupta, a retired professor from the University who was Mr. Singh's student.

Recalling his simplicity, Mr. Gupta said ``once when I was going to my department on foot Mr. Singh stopped me and gave me a lift on his bicycle, one could understand how difficult it would be for a student to sit on a bicycle which was being pulled by his teacher."

``Yes as an initial measure to express our happiness we will distribute sweets among students... after all it is a big achievement for any economist,'' chairperson of the University's economics department Naveen Sharma said.

Mr. Singh is a gold medalist in BA (Hons) and an MA in Economics from Panjab University.

Recalling his association with Mr. Singh, V S Mahajan, a retired professor and the former's colleague, who has also penned a book on him, said he (Manmohan) was a sober and balanced teacher with great interest.

Mr. Mahajan, who is a director of an NGO centre for developmental studies, said ``once a situation arose when the Vice-Chancellor of the university passed certain orders against a teaching member. Perturbed over the VC's decision Mr. Singh resigned from the post of senior lecturer.

``However, the university refused to accept his resignation knowing it very well how important could be the services of Mr. Singh to the university''.

``After a compromise was reached Mr. Singh withdrew his resignation, I still remember that,'' said Mr. Mahajan.

The author of the book `Manmohan's India', Mr. Mahajan claimed Mr. Singh was very close to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and even helped her in preparation of budget''.

``At one point of time World Bank almost dictated that Mr. Singh should be the Finance Minister of the country,'' he claimed.

But Mr. Singh's teaching colleagues remembered that they never found him inclined towards politics. ``He never showed any interest or talked politics during his teaching days,'' they said.

PTI

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