New Delhi: More than a decade after he joined anti-corruption crusaders to target Manmohan Singh’s government, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan praised the former prime minister on his first death anniversary, saying he “regretted” having participated in a movement that “vilified him and helped a rogue regime” come to power.
Bhushan, who had taken on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over the alleged 2G and coal scams, described Manmohan as a “humble, decent, well-educated and well-meaning man”, whose “humility and decency” were seen as a “weakness”.
Apart from serving as the prime minister from 2004 to 2014, Singh is credited with ushering in a comprehensive policy of economic reforms in India when the economist-politician was the finance minister from 1991 to 1996.
Known for his dignified, quiet yet transformative leadership, Singh had come under attack from the likes of Bhushan, Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal at the final years of his second stint as the prime minister.
“He was a humble, decent, well educated and well meaning man. His humility and decency was seen as a weakness. I regret having participated in a movement that vilified him and helped a rogue regime come to power,” Bhushan posted Friday on ‘X’.
He was a humble, decent, well educated & well meaning man. His humility & decency was seen as a weakness.
I regret having participated in a movement that vilified him & helped a rogue regime come to power pic.twitter.com/6JWOrdCZdE
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) December 26, 2025
Bhushan was one of the forerunners of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, a precursor to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Alongside Hazare and Kejriwal, Bhushan took on the Manmohan Singh-led government over a series of alleged scams in 2010.
He questioned Singh’s leadership with implications of him letting corruption thrive under his prime ministership. He asked if the PM had “succumbed” to “corporates” under compulsions or ignorance talking about Reliance Industries’ KG Basin gas pricing deal in 2012.
In May that year, he had drawn a parallel between Manmohan Singh and Shikhandi, a character in the Mahabharata, only to deny later.
“I did not call the Prime Minister a ‘Shikhandi‘. We also know that he is personally not corrupt. But, when the PM lets corruption flourish under his leadership, what is the point of personal honesty? Congress party uses him as a ‘kavach‘, or shield just as Shikhandi was used as a shield in Mahabharata,” the then Team Anna member had said.
Three years later, he and fellow colleague Yogendra Yadav had a fallout with Kejriwal and were expelled from the AAP for indiscipline.
Since then, Bhushan has conceded on several occasions his mistake in going against Singh.
Back in 2020, he told India Today in an interview that Kejriwal knew the IAC was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a point made by the Congress repeatedly in the past about the Sangh’s hand in the movement.
“In hindsight, there are two things that I do regret. One is not seeing that the movement was to a large extent supported and propped up by the BJP-RSS for their own political purposes to bring down the Congress government and get themselves in power,” he had told India Today.
“I have no doubt about it [BJP-RSS role in IAC] today. He [Anna Hazare] was also probably not aware of it, Arvind [Kejriwal] was aware of it, I have very little doubt of that. The second regret that I have is not having understood Arvind’s character earlier enough. I understood it too late by which time we had actually created another Frankenstein’s monster so to say.”
Similarly, when the Anupam Kher-starrer ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, hit the screen in 2019, Bhushan had slammed the movie, saying that it reduced “Manmohan Singh to a pathetic caricature.” “Expect a propaganda hagiography from the biopic of Modi,” he had added.
The accidental PM, the puported biopic of Manmohan Singh is an unabashed attempt of political propaganda against Sonia/Rahul & the Congress, reducing Manmohan Singh to a pathetic caricature. Expect a propaganda hagiography from the biopic of Modi https://t.co/47NzVc5jTV
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) January 11, 2019
That same year, Bhushan had shared his inputs to the Congress leaders on the party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections. He along with fellow activists including Yogendra Yadav, Harsh Mander, A.P. Shah had also released a document, ‘Reclaiming the Republic’, hoping it would shape the political agenda in the general elections.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: ‘Would’ve been pleased with tributes in his own quiet way.’ Family, peers remember Manmohan Singh
The coming of BJP and Modi to power in 2014 can be taken as a part of the democratic process , and we can’t blame Prashant BHushan for that , but what is really regrettable about the attitude of people like BHushan during that time was the AUTOMATIC assumption that certain persons in the UPA Cabinet or Congress were corrupt, without waiting for a full judicial process to complete. THis is now clear from two celebrated cases , namely the 2 G and CWG cases. In the CWG trial, the judge after ten years has acquitted all the accused and even the ED admitted in court that there is no evidence.
In the 2G case also, the judge after a five year detailed trial acquitted ALL accused of ALL charges.
We now see that the activities of the IAC and similar people have ruined the careers and reputation of well meaning honest politicians and bureaucrats.
It is to these people and not just to MMS that Mr BHushan should express his regret.