Yashwant Sinha feels he was largely responsible for NDA's 2004 rout

Who was responsible for the 2004 rout of A B Vajpayee-led NDA government? Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha "sometimes" believes he was largely responsible for NDA's electoral debacle, according to a new book.

He believes his proactive stance on economic reforms and decision to raise kerosene prices and a cut in interest rates resulting in lesser returns in provident funds among the reasons for discontentment among voters.

In the recently released 'The Future of Indian Economy: Past Reforms and Challenges Ahead' edited by Sinha and Vinay K Srivastava, he says politics will always dominate economics in India, at least in the foreseeable future.

"Politicians and political parties are risk averse, especially as far as elections are concerned. They would never like to put the existence of their government or their political future at stake for the sake of economic reforms. Economic growth has never been an election issue in India," he rues in his article 'Are Economic Reforms Accepted in India?'

It is here where Sinha says that "sometimes, I feel that I may have been largely responsible for the defeat of my party in the 2004 elections" and that he can never forget the lessons he learnt in that election.

As Finance Minister, Sinha had raised the prices of kerosene oil from Rs 2.50 to Rs 9.50. When he went campaigning in a remote village in his constituency and asked an old woman for her vote, Sinha says, an old woman held him responsible for raising kerosene prices which had made her life difficult.

"I always take credit for the fact that I had drastically reduced interest rates in the economy to spur growth by vastly reducing the cost of money. Yet, it became a major liability for me in my constituency which has a large number of coal mine workers who felt cheated because the return on their Provident Fund savings had declined. All my pleas that inflation had been moderated fell on deaf ears," he says.

His opponents were "successful in painting" Sinha as the culprit and managed to get away with it, he says. "If I had done nothing of this sort, I surely would have been better off," he says.

Sinha also cites the example of National Highways project, which was regarded as the high point of Vajpayee government. "...Yet you will be surprised if I told you that in the 2004 general elections, the NDA lost all the 14 seats it had won in 1998 along NH-2 which connects eastern India with north-western India," he says.