PM's PR initiative can so easily turn into a PR disaster

Finally, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has chosen to break his silence. In what the government’s spin doctors describe as some kind of a new beginning, the Prime Minister will meet a group of print and TV editors every week.  In the first instance, on Wednesday, Manmohan Singh will meet five newspaper editors. This PR initiative by the Prime Minister comes in the wake of growing criticism of Manmohan Singh’s failure to speak his mind on issues like the Jan Lokpal bill, which have weighed on people’s minds for the past few months. The PM’s reluctance to interact with the media and share his views on the sensitive issues that have been brought to the public domain by a sustained campaign by anti-corruption activists, particularly Team Anna, had begun to attract sharp criticism not just from members of the civil society but from his own party members and ministerial colleagues. [caption id=“attachment_33241” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a lot to answer for, and unless he uses his media interactions to respond to burning issues of governance, they could backfire on his government. PTI”] [/caption] Even on such issues as whether the office of the Prime Minister should come under the ambit of the proposed Lokpal, Manmohan Singh has been less than forthright.  He had earlier stated that he wanted the Prime Minister’s office to be covered under the proposed Jan Lokpal, but in recent months, he has simply clammed up. The first signs of the Prime Minister’s authority being questioned came when Digvijaya Singh, the maverick AICC general secretary, said last week that the time had come for Rahul Gandhi to take over the reins as  Prime Minister . Digvijaya Singh later retracted somewhat by clarifying that he wasn’t suggesting that there was a vacancy in the Prime Minister’s office; Congress party spokespersons too spoke out in defence of the “excellent work” being done by Manmohan Singh. But the damage was done. Over the weekend, it was the turn of Home Minister P Chidambaram, considered one of the Prime Minister’s confidante, to publicly disapprove of Manmohan Singh’s reluctance to speak for himself and the government. Chidambram said that in his view the PM should clarify his stand on issues confronting the nation more often. It now transpires that a decision was taken at last week’s Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting that the Prime Minister should be more proactive in reaching out to the media. The decision was based on an assessment  by the party’s media cell that the Congress was losing the battle of perception vis-à-vis Team Anna, especially with the middle class. Therefore, Manmohan Singh now has the rather enviable task of spearheading his government’s media blitz. His track record on this count is hardly inspiring. The last major press conference he held in Delhi in February with TV editors is remembered more for his statement that “coalition compulsions” were to blame for corruption. The lasting image from that press conference was of a leader who had to repeatedly stake his personal  reputation as a man of unimpeachable integrity without tackling unsettling and uncomfortable questions. For his own sake as well as for the sake of the UPA government, it might help for the Prime Minister to do his homework better this time around. People want straight answers to fairly straightforward questions. Whatever be Manmohan Singh’s personal  reputation, India  wants to know what action his government proposes to take against Textiles Minister  Dayanidhi Maran and former Chief Justice of India  KG Balakrishnan , against whom serious charges of corruption have been made. What is the government doing about the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the goings-on in the oil and gas ministry? Why does one get the impression that the CBI is still going slow on the 2G probe? What does the Prime Minister have to say about the perception of drift in his government and the dogfight under way among some of his senior Cabinet colleagues? The list of questions is long. And unless the Prime Minister answer them squarely, the PR blitz that his spin doctors are advising him to undertake could well turn into a PR disaster.