<i>Accidental premier</i>
Even at his hour of triumph, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not forgotten his humble origin and calls himself a politician by accident.
Replying to the debate on the trust vote which he won convincingly Tuesday night, Singh recalled his days as a boy at a remote village (now in Pakistan) when he had to walk miles to study in a school and studied in the dim light of a kerosene oil lamp.
"I have often said that I am a politician by accident. I have held many diverse responsibilities. I have been a teacher. I have been an official of the government of India. I have been a member of this greatest of Parliaments but I have never forgotten my life as a young boy in a distant village", he said.
"Every day that I have been Prime Minister of India, I have tried to remember that the first ten years of my life were spent in a village with no drinking water supply, no electricity, no hospital, no roads and nothing that we today associate with modern living. I had to walk miles to school. I had to study in the dim light of a kerosene oil lamp", a nostalgic Singh said.
However, "this nation gave me the opportunity to ensure that such would not be the life of our children in the forseeable future", the Prime Minister added.
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