From the archive record
Minister of Finance of India and politician P. Chidambaram speaks on economic policies. He says,"Much of it was anticipated and spelled out in the manifesto. There was a manifesto committee under Mr. Shivraj Patil and I was pretty sure that I would be excluded from the committee but that's me. They produced a document so one day Jeevji called me and said this is the manifesto. I don't know it doesn't sound good to me you read it. He said to sit in that corner of that waiting room outside and read it. I sat on a chair and started reading the manifesto I think. I must have spent an hour, hour and a half. It was a disastrous document, one of those platitudinous, vague and ambivalent document which Congress party produces from time to time and about two hours later, three hours later close to