By IANS
New Delhi : It is a little known fact that before then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao brought Manmohan Singh into the cabinet as finance minister in 1991, it was his predecessor Chandra Shekhar who inducted him into the administration as his economic adviser a year earlier.
Singh held the post of adviser to the prime minister from December 10, 1990 to March 14, 1991 in the seven months that Chandra Shekhar's government lasted.
"In certain ways, one can say that Prime Minister Singh's initiation to political administration was initiated by Chandra Shekhar and they enjoyed a very good rapport. Even when he (Chandra Shekhar) was ailing, Singh enquired about his health many times," said an official in the Prime Minister's Office.
This was evident in Manmohan Singh's message following his death, in which he reminisced about Chandra Shekhar's rich political and administrative acumen, describing him as the person who "steered the ship of our nation and economy through stormy waters with statesmanship and wisdom".
Paying glowing tribute, Manmohan Singh described Chandra Shekhar as a person unafraid of taking unpopular decisions as they were in the larger national interest and served the nation in the long term.
"If people say he (Manmohan Singh) was an academic turned bureaucrat turned politician then I would say some credit must be given to Chandra Shekhar," said Congress MP Jai Prakash, who was a minister of state for petroleum in the former prime minister's cabinet.
After his three-month stint as economic advisor, Singh served an equal period as chairman of the University Grants Commission before being inducted in Rao's cabinet.
It was as finance minister that Manmohan Singh initiated path-breaking economic liberalisation that unleashed the latent strength of the Indian economy and laid the foundation for its present growth.
In 1991, when he joined the Narasimha Rao cabinet, it was a turbulent time for the Indian economy with foreign exchange coffers barely enough for two weeks' imports.