The 2009 Lok Sabha election has them all. But, a late burst from none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in an interview is probably the most shocking one so far in this election. The Prime Minister reportedly said that if the Congress was returned to power, he would ensure the country's economic recovery in 100 days and put it on a double-digit growth path.

It is not clear what the Prime Minister meant when he said if the Congress party comes to power singularly, or collectively, leading a coalition group such as the UPA after the election. The first possibility looks remote. Therefore, it is rather shocking that such a tall promise should come from an otherwise cautious Prime Minister, who has been associated with the government for decades and knows the weaknesses of the Indian economy which have been standing in the way of its high growth for years. He is no trickster or a magician. Nor did he ever leave an impression that he possessed a magic wand to produce an economic miracle within 100 days in power. Obviously, he is out of balance like many of his ilk - L.K. Advani, Sonia Gandhi, Prakash Karat, Karunanidhi, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The first question that comes to ones mind is this: if the Prime Minister is really capable of playing an economic magician should he get another opportunity to lead the national government after the Lok Sabha polls, what prevented him from doing the same to avert the present the economic slowdown and huge loss of jobs in the private sector across the country in the last 180 days? Why has his Rs. 60,000 crore investment package failed to take off? Why have lakhs of employees in the private sector lost their jobs in the last 100 days? And why are executives forced to take pay cuts while his government and semi-government employees, bureaucrats, ministers and judges are given 30 to 50 per cent pay and pension hikes? Why are the people losing faith in the electoral system as was evident from the poor turnout in the current election?

Not many would disagree that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had failed to run the government with full authority and power. Some of his ministers, holding important economic portfolios, seemed to have been pursuing their personal agenda. The high rate of economic growth in the last five years is not due to the government. It is, in fact, despite the government. There was no contribution by the government to the growth rate, except for opening the control sluice gates to flood the economy with unaccounted foreign funds from Mauritius and other international tax havens into the primary and secondary markets which buoyed the economy. Singh's cabinet colleagues are still at it trying to circumvent FDI restrictions in the sectors where Indians are holding majority stakes, at least on paper, even when the election process is on.

The economic performance had nothing to do with the government's performance, which remains the worst in memory. The government did not invest in power and petroleum energy, the country's biggest stumbling block for economic progress and growth. This has been left to the corporate sector. It did not invest enough in telecommunications and infrastructure, which were again left to the corporate sector. The entire country is reeling under unscheduled power cuts and drinking water crisis. Public health service continues to be the most neglected area. The less one talks about the state of urban and rural sanitation, the better. Almost all national rivers have been turned into public sewage. Although there was a boom in group housing for the middle and high-income group in the urban areas, the living conditions in rural India continue to be deplorable.

The worst performing area is the manufacturing sector, the growth rate of which has dwindled to barely one to two per cent as against a double digit growth witnessed during the 1980s. Foreign debt has escalated to alarming levels, keeping pace with the free foreign exchange reserves with the country's central bank. Dwindling exports combined with massive import growth despite a 60 per cent fall in international crude oil prices in the second part of the last financial year has left a yawning trade gap. With remittances from Indian workers abroad set to take a nosedive in 2009-0 as they are returning to the country in hordes, jobless, India may soon be in the midst of a balance of payment crisis. The oil price crash and the effect of global depression have led to economic slowdown in West Asian countries, and the first major victim of the development is the Indian workforce engaged there.

The anti-public sector policies pursued by some of the important economic ministries like telecom, civil aviation, petroleum and power have weakened the country's core strength in these areas. The country's national carriers Air-India and Indian Airlines were systematically pushed out of business to make room for powerful private operators having roots abroad. The mindless merger of the two public sector airlines and planned gagging of their operations turned the merged entity so sick that the company has to borrow to pay the salaries and wages to its employees. The public sector telecom companies like BSNL and MTNL too are in a shambles, after being gagged by the authorities for the benefit of private operators. Originally promoted in the public sector, India's two top professionally managed banks, ICICI and HDFC, are no longer Indian-owned enterprises. Overseas entities have quietly acquired majority stakes in both the banks. ICICI is the country's second largest bank after SBI.

Manmohan Singh has let the control button of the economy go out of the government's hands, perhaps willingly. The government's liberal import regime has led to the flood of foreign good of all kinds into the Indian market sweeping away even the most reliable Indian brands in the manufacturing sector. Even a Rs. 9,00,000-crore national budget has little for infrastructure and rural development. The situation is so bad that no government can reverse the process and take control of the economy to drive its growth in a situation as bad as this, taking a leaf out of more affected economies such as the USA, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK and the actions taken by those governments to fight economic slowdown. Manmohan's election campaign on the basis of his performance in economy can certainly be contested by other political combinations.#