Manmohan: No contest with Modi on ‘humble background’

Surat, December 2 

Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today said he does not want people to take pity on his humble background as he is not in competition with his successor, Narendra Modi, over this.

“I don’t want the country to take pity on the basis of my humble background. I do not think I would like to enter in any competition with Prime Minister Modiji on this particular matter,” he said here.

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Dr Singh was replying to a question on why he never talked about his background like Modi often does by saying he used to sell tea at a railway station in Gujarat to support his family.

 Dr Singh was born in undivided Punjab in 1932 into a family of modest means. For the first 12 years of his life, he lived in Gah, a village with no electricity, school, hospital and piped water. He walked for miles to school and studied at night in the dim light of a kerosene lamp — a reason for his poor eyesight.

His family migrated to Amritsar in 1947. He lost his mother at an early age and was brought up by his grandmother. — IANS