'History will be kinder to me...': Here's what Dr Manmohan Singh said in his last presser as PM (WATCH)

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh defended his leadership against criticism of weakness, expressing confidence that history would judge him more favorably than the media or the opposition. He highlighted his handling of political pressures and compromises made on peripheral issues, not national problems.

Months before he demitted office as prime minister in 2014, Manmohan Singh had famously asserted that his leadership was not weak and history would be kinder to him than what the media projected at that time. During one of his final media appearances, a news conference held in January 2014, Singh had stated, "I do not feel that I have been a weak Prime Minister... Sincerely, I think that history will treat me better than the media of today or, for that matter, the opposition in parliament. I have done my best in light of the political pressures."

"...I have done as well as I could do according to the circumstances... It is for history to judge what I have done or what I have not done," Singh, who was the prime minister for 10 years till Narendra Modi took charge on May 26, 2014.

He was answering a barrage of inquiries on claims that his leadership was "weak" and that he frequently lacked decisiveness. Singh had also chosen the press conference to launch a blistering attack on BJP's then prime ministerial candidate Modi and referred to the 2002 Gujarat riots under the Chief Minister. 

In the lead-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP at the time had portrayed Modi as a strong leader while criticizing Singh for having "weak" leadership.

"If you measure the strength of Prime Minister by presiding over mass massacre of innocent citizens on streets of Ahmedabad, then I do not believe in it.... I do not think that this kind of strength this country needs least from its Prime Minister," Singh had said.

Although some compromises were made during the process, Singh insisted that they were on "peripheral issues and not on national problems" and that his two terms as prime minister under UPA I and UPA II demonstrated the Congress's capacity to lead a coalition government and dispelled the myth that this party is incapable of doing so.