'Had PM taken stand, history would've seen him differently'

New Delhi, May 13 (IANS) History would have recorded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh differently if he had taken a stand against scams and frauds, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said Tuesday.

"If he (Manmohan Singh) had stood up and cancelled the coal blocks allocation once the fraud was revealed or cancelled the 2G licenses himself rather than wait for the court to do it, I have no doubt that history would have recorded him very differently," Jaitley wrote in his blog.

The blog appeared a day after the 10-phased general elections across 28 states and seven union territories ended Monday. Exit polls indicate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to surge ahead when votes get counted Friday and oust the Congress-led UPA that has been in power for the past decade.

Jaitley added that Singh's inability to speak up within his own party, may compel historians to take a different view of him.

"With an element of scholarship, he was always well read and well prepared on any subject. And yet, when he addressed the country, he never came out as a leader. The reason for not coming out as a leader was clear. He never wanted to rock the boat," he said.

Attacking Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Jaitley said that Singh was vested with limited powers and had to keep the party and its first family in good humour on all major decisions.

"Thus, when the reform process was blocked on account of decisions of the National Advisory Council or when (Congress vice president) Rahul Gandhi tore apart the papers of objectionable ordinance, the prime minister was perceived as a non-leader who had to accept everything without his opinion mattering significantly," he said.

Jaitley, however, praised Singh for being a good finance minister and said that his footprints during the 1991-96 period would be remembered.