New Delhi, Nov. 21: Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi today sought to steel the country for the backwash of a feared global economic typhoon, he playing the good economist and she the good politician in a division of labour tailored for the approaching elections.

The message from the top two decision-makers: India will be affected but don’t panic. India will not retreat into a shell but expect sound bites echoing the Left’s pet themes in the run-up to elections.

“I assure (you) that despite the international environment, we have the capacity and ability to sustain the growth rate of about 8 per cent and will do so,” Manmohan told the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit today in the rosiest forecast yet since the economic horizon darkened.

The Prime Minister and other decision-makers were so far projecting growth rates ranging between 7 and 7.5 per cent as against the 9 per cent last year.

Manmohan’s prescription (see chart) delivered today completed a trilogy of dissertations that unfolded in Beijing in October and picked their way through Washington at this month’s G20 summit.

If the Prime Minister focused on the causes of the global meltdown at the Beijing Asia Europe Meeting on October 24 and suggested several remedial measures at the G20 meeting on November 15, today he looked inward to address the country’s concerns.

“No instruments of public policy will be spared. We will use fiscal, monetary, public investment and exchange rate” to tackle the current crisis, Manmohan said.

The prescriptions spooned out by Sonia and Manmohan differed not so much in substance as in nuance. But the Congress president grabbed the political centrestage at a venue peppered with industrialists by dropping an N-bomb: nationalisation and how it shielded Indian banks.

From her own polite warning that she was about to “show the proverbial red rag to the bull”, it appeared that she came prepared at a time the Left has been claiming credit for inoculating India by stonewalling financial reforms.

“If you allow me the liberty of showing what is to you the proverbial ‘red rag to the bull’.… Let me take you back to Indira Gandhi’s much-reviled bank nationalisation of 40 years ago.… Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision. Public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown,” she said.

She clung to her position when the anchor referred to her “Brezhnevian” statements, saying: “But what would we have done now without the nationalised banks?”

Business leaders later disagreed with her but conceded such remarks were expected in the current political and economic atmosphere.

Y.K. Modi, a former Ficci president, said: “Better regulation by the RBI has given stability…. The issue is not of ownership of banks but that of regulation.”

K.C. Chakrabarty, the chairman and managing director of India’s second largest public sector bank, Punjab National Bank, said: “Performance banking is ownership-neutral and is about good management with functional autonomy. All banks have been nurtured by public money and, therefore, are public institutes.”

But some Congress leaders expressed relief at Sonia’s remarks and saw a Left-of-Centre tilt in the run-up to the elections. They said her remarks kept the door ajar for the Left to warm up to the Congress if circumstances so required after the 2009 elections.

But other party sources pointed out she had not spoken of nationalisation in future but merely referred to a Congress legacy that should strike a chord now.

Sonia did temper her speech by telling industry: “There is no need for over-reaction, let alone for panic. There is no need for us to get back to the era of controls. At the same time, we cannot allow things to spin out of control.”

If that did not calm nerves, another of her statements must have: “We will not abandon the prudent and cautious course charted so far under the able leadership of our Prime Minister.” The opening bars of that theme had already been played by the Prime Minister who spoke before Sonia.

Cautioning that the current crisis is “deep”, Manmohan sought to reassure the country by referring to his own credentials. The economic exigency of 1991 was “more” serious and the country had even then managed to overcome it efficiently, he said of the balance of payments crisis that pitchforked him into politics and set the stage for liberalisation.