New book reveals: MMS allowed himself to look like Sonia's patsy

By MK Venu In the middle of the bitterly contested Lok Sabha elections, a book on Dr.Mamohan Singh written by Sanjaya Baru, his media advisor during UPA I, is likely to become a subject of fresh debate on the relationship between Manmohan Singh and the Congress party led by Sonia Gandhi. This is relevant because the BJP last week had publicly accused the Congress President of eroding the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office by acting as an extra constitutional authority. [caption id=“attachment_1475669” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi.[/caption] The book, titled, “The Accidental Prime Minister: The making and unmaking of Manmohan Singh”, which is making a low-key entry into the book stores on Friday, offers new information on the division of powers between the Prime Minister and Congress President. The book is expected to reveal that Manmohan Singh fully resigned himself to the situation where there will be only one power centre in the UPA government, i.e. the Congress President. He was clear in his mind that having two power centres, one in party and another in government, would be disastrous. So at every stage he responded by not asserting himself – and that is what the book seeks to convey by and large. The book also blames key officials like T.K.A.Nair, Principal Secretary to the PM in UPA 1, and for some years in UPA II, for the general perception that the PMO was perceived as totally ineffectual at one stage. It suggests that throughout the term of UPA 1, Manmohan Singh’s functioning was constantly hampered by other senior Cabinet colleagues like A.K.Antony and Arjun Singh, the former opposing the PM in internal meetings and the latter publicly so. Surprisingly, the one person who is named as an ally of Manmohan Singh, often coming to his rescue, is NCP leader Sharad Pawar. There was also tension between the Congress party and Manmohan Singh over the impressive Lok Sabha victory of the Congress in 2009. Indeed there was a perception then that voters were happy with the way Manmohan Singh had steered the economy out of trouble after the devastating global economic crisis of October 2008. However, key members of the inner coterie of Sonia Gandhi did not want much credit to go to Manmohan Singh. Therefore, the electoral victory on 2009 was seen as largely due to the party’s campaign and communication strategy and less due to the projection of Manmohan as PM for second term. In fact, Manmohan Singh, on occasions, would even tell his media advisor Sanjaya Baru, whom he had personally picked because of their long association, to allow the party to take credit for certain big policy decisions, especially on the welfare agenda of the UPA. Indeed, there was a feeling among those close to Manmohan Singh that the party took credit for the positive things that happened under UPA rule but blamed Manmohan for the failures. Manmohan’s image took a real beating in the latter years of UPA II when the charge of policy paralysis gripped the government, and cabinet ministers had started openly defying the PMO over project clearances. Hopes were raised when T.K.Nair was replaced as Principal Secretary by Pulak Chatterjee, a senior bureaucrat seen as an old Sonia Gandhi loyalist. However, things had worsened so much that the economy had lost momentum by then. There was a visible decline in the PM’s authority during UPA II. When the PM wanted the author to come back to the PMO as an advisor on economic matters, the party discouraged the PM. In fact, Sanjaya Baru quit his academic assignment in Singapore after being asked by the PM to come to work in his office. The author landed in Delhi to find that the government had changed the offer of working at the PMO and instead the PM asked him whether he would join Planning Commission. Baru declined the alternative position. Generally, the overarching theme of the book is that the PM was always mindful of the fact that it should be clear that there was only one power centre, i.e. Congress President. The book will definitely be seized upon by various political forces even if it doesn’t intend to do so. M.K.Venu is Executive Editor, Amar Ujala Group