Attacks on Baru book only boost its credibility; will PM speak on it?

In the coming weeks, more attempts will be made to discredit the account of Sanjaya Baru, author of The Accidental Prime Minister: The making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, now that it has become an election issue, with Narendra Modi repeatedly referring to it in his campaign speeches.

The book, among other things, says that Singh allowed Sonia Gandhi to become the sole power centre, especially in UPA-2, thus effectively emasculating Singh’s office. He also hinted that some PMO files may have been discussed with Sonia before they landed up the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) – something that has been hotly denied by the PMO.

So damaging has Baru’s book been to the credibility of Manmohan Singh that the Congress was forced to attack Baru as someone with an axe to grind. The PMO itself called his book a piece of “fiction” and a “coloured” version of events, and Congress spokespersons have attacked Baru as an opportunist who wrote the book for commercial reasons and to get back at Singh after he was denied a job in the PMO in 2009 after the UPA was re-elected with an improved mandate. More recently, Priyanka Gandhi has tried to undercut the book’s claim that Sonia was real super-PM. She said Manmohan Singh was the only Super PM , but few will believe her.

Manmohan Singh’s daughters, Upinder Singh and Daman Singh , have also rushed to his defence, with the former, a historian, accusing Baru of stabbing her father in the back, and “violating” his trust. She also accused him of “unethical” behaviour.

However, none of the attacks have dented the credibility of the book so far.

In fact, Upinder’s attack on Baru may actually have ended up boosting the book. If something is merely “unethical”, in a back-handed way it confirms that a lot of what Baru wrote may be true.

Upinder also took another line of attack to debunk Baru’s story: that he could not have known much about what was going on in the PMO since he did not have access. The Economic Times quotes her as saying: “He (Baru) is holding forth and projecting himself in the centre of events which is not true and he had no access to files. It is not as if he was the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. So what are the sources he has used? I spot an element of self-promotion in these assertions.”

However, if Upinder had read the book’s introduction, Baru does not claim any special access to files. However, he does claim special access to Singh. He writes: “During my time at the PMO, I rarely had the occasion…to look at government files, much less confidential files. Rather than seek access to files, I demanded access to the PM, to hear his views directly on any given issue. ..”. Singh, writes Baru, “gave me unrestricted access to himself, at work and at home.”

Baru says he did not sit at cabinet or Congress core group meetings, but “I was undoubtedly privileged in the level of access I enjoyed to the Prime Minister.”

Having covered all these expected attacks, the only thing that can challenge Baru’s claims to authenticity is if Singh himself seeks to debunk the thoughts and statements attributed to him in the book. Among them is one that says he preferred to let Sonia decide many things since there cannot be two centres of power.

This is the quote the book ascribes to Singh about Sonia calling the shots, the one that damages Singh the most: “I have to come to terms with this. There cannot be two centres of power. That creates confusion. I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power.”

Not surprisingly, The Economic Times on Wednesday (16 April) says that Manmohan Singh is under pressure from the Congress party to speak out and contradict Baru.

The credibility of Baru’s account can only be dented by Singh himself. But having whittled down his own powers in UPA-2, one wonders if even Singh can debunk what is by now the worst kept secret in India: emasculation of his prime ministership in UPA-2  by Sonia and Rahul.