On the birth anniversary of one of India's most consequential economic architects, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu offered a heartfelt tribute to former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Saturday, September 26, 2026, saluting his vision, economic acumen, and lifelong commitment to India's most vulnerable citizens.

Posting in Hindi on X, CM Sukhu wrote: 'देश के पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री डॉ. मनमोहन सिंह जी की जयंती पर उन्हें शत-शत नमन एवं वंदन' — 'I offer a hundred salutes and reverence to former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on his birth anniversary.' He credited Dr. Singh with giving 'new momentum to India's economy through farsightedness and economic understanding, linking development to broad public interest.'

The architect of 1991 — and what he built after

The tribute lands with particular weight given the scale of Dr. Singh's legacy. As Finance Minister in 1991, he presented a landmark budget that dismantled the Licence Raj, threw open India's economy to foreign investment, and set the country on a path of sustained growth. It was arguably the single most transformative economic intervention in post-independence India.

But Sukhu's tribute reaches beyond 1991. The Chief Minister specifically highlighted Dr. Singh's focus on the poor, Dalits, and marginalised communities — a reference to the welfare architecture built during the UPA government (2004–2014), which Dr. Singh led as Prime Minister. Most notably, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), enacted in 2005, guaranteed 100 days of wage employment annually to rural households — a programme that remains the world's largest public employment scheme.

A Congress narrative, renewed every September 26

Within the Indian National Congress, Dr. Singh's birth anniversary on September 26 has become a recurring moment of ideological reaffirmation. Party leaders consistently invoke the 1991 reforms alongside UPA-era welfare measures to argue that economic growth and social equity are not competing goals but complementary ones. Sukhu's post fits squarely in that tradition.

'Increasing opportunities in the lives of the poor, Dalits, the deprived, and the weak was an important part of his economic vision,' Sukhu wrote. 'His dedication to the nation will remain a source of inspiration for generations to come.'

For a state like Himachal Pradesh — where a significant share of the population depends on rural employment and government welfare delivery — the invocation of Dr. Singh's inclusive development model carries local resonance beyond mere political ritual. Dr. Singh's legacy, on the anniversary of his birth, remains as alive in party discourse as it is in policy textbooks.