Sonia Gandhi Defends Manmohan Singh, Slams Modi Over Coal Scam Verdict

Days after the Supreme Court gave former prime minister Manmohan Singh a clean chit in the coal block allocation case, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said his record of integrity and accountability stood in stark contrast to the way the Narendra Modi government has operated. She said history would indeed remember Singh kindly as a quiet, gentle, but a most consequential prime minister. In a swipe at Prime Minister 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. The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson said the judgment brings to a conclusion one of the most tragic arcs of our public discourse,"the witch-hunt against Dr Singh, a man of the most remarkable probity and integrity." "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 published in The Indian Express. "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, Gandhi said. 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", she pointed out.