New Delhi, March 8: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared more the economist and less of the politician in the Upper House today as he justified government spending on social schemes and argued for UPA’s performance on economic growth.

Replying to the debate on the motion of thanks on the President’s address to Parliament, Singh replied to charges from Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley earlier this week. However, there were no fireworks unlike in Lok Sabha.

The Prime Minister’s speech appeared more a statement of facts on the economy and the Upper House did not get the taste of the aggression seen against the BJP in Lok Sabha on Thursday.

After the end of the Prime Minister’s reply, Jaitley made only a short observation on why he treated corruption as a “non-issue”. Jaitley had also pointed out that the government was first unbridled in its spending and now wants to take credit for enforcing financial discipline.

“We are proud of expanding expenditure in the social sector. We are proud of increasing spending in programmes that ensure access to health and education for the common man, particularly of the weaker sections of our society…We are proud of making all sincere efforts for fulfilling our commitment for inclusive growth,” the Prime Minister said in Rajya Sabha.

Armed with statistics that compared budgetary allocations in the social sector during the NDA and UPA regimes, Singh’s strategy seemed to let the figures speak for themselves. He said the UPA has brought about “social balance in our patterns of spending, to pay a greater attention to social sectors of the economy”.

singh demonstrated through figures how growth rates of economy were lower during NDA regime than during the UPA regime. After the speech, BJP leaders insisted on asking at least one clarification to the reply. “We had raised the issue of corruption. I hope the Prime Minister had not treated it as a non-issue,” said Jaitley, before the motion of thanks was adopted by voice vote by chairman, Hamid Ansari.

Pak straight talk

Manmohan Singh said relations with Pakistan cannot be normalised unless that country controls the “terror machine”.

Singh’s words spoken in the Rajya Sabha come a day ahead of Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf’s private visit to Ajmer on Saturday. India has made sincere efforts to normalise relations with Pakistan and some progress has been achieved, the Prime Minister said, citing increase in people-to-people contacts and improvement in trade relations.

“But there cannot be normalisation of relations between our two countries unless and until the terror machine, which is still active in Pakistan, is brought under control,” the Prime Mininster said.