NEW DELHI: As per a book written by prime minister Manmohan Singh’s former media adviser during the UPA-1, the PM seemed to have had little authority over his own Cabinet.
As reported in Times of India on Friday, the author, Sanjaya Baru, claims that when it seemed the Congress would cave in to the Left on the nuclear deal with the US, a dejected Singh told a couple of confidants, “She (Sonia) has let me down.” And he adds that Pulok Chatterjee, who served in the PMO in UPA-1 and is now principal secretary to the PM, would have “regular, almost daily meetings with Sonia Gandhi in which he was said to brief her… and seek her instructions on the important files to be cleared by the PM.”
“No one in Singh’s council of ministers seemed to feel that he owed his position, rank or portfolio to him. The final word always was that of leaders of the parties constituting the UPA,” says the book. It adds that Singh often faced challenges while dealing with senior Congress ministers like Arjun Singh, A K Antony and the “presumed PM-in-waiting” Pranab Mukherjee. “Each had a mind of his own and each was conscious of his political status and rank”.
After the Congress’s electoral victory in 2009, PM Manmohan Singh made “the cardinal mistake of imagining the victory was his. Bit by bit, in the space of a few weeks he was defanged. He thought he could induct the ministers he wanted. Sonia nipped that hope in the bud by offering the finance portfolio to Pranab (Mukherjee), without even consulting him,” reveals a new book.
Singh had apparently been keen to appoint his principal economic adviser C Rangarajan, “the comrade with whom he had battled the balance of payments crisis of 1991-92”, as finance minister.
According to Baru, Congress MPs “did not see loyalty to the PM as a political necessity, nor did Dr Singh seek loyalty in the way. Sonia and her aides sought it.”
For years, Singh’s stoic silence has made him the target of many unkind remarks. But the secrecy shrouding his functioning — and his relationship with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi — has now been breached by a man he had handpicked. While offering the job to Baru, Singh had requested him to be “his eyes and ears”. Ten years on, Baru has chosen to exercise his voice — and it couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Congress.
Baru’s book, ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ paints a picture of a PM who decided to “surrender” to the party boss and the UPA allies. According to Baru, Sonia’s “renunciation of power was more a political tactic than a response to a higher calling”.
Predictably, the book has already evoked sharp responses. The PM’s current media advisor, Pankaj Pachauri, dismissed the book “as an attempt to misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and to apparently exploit it for commercial gains. The commentary smacks of fiction and coloured views of the former advisor”. A later statement issued by the PMO said, “It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been shown to Shrimati Sonia Gandhi. The statement is…completely baseless and mischievous.” Baru’s response was a pithy, “I am amused. All I can say is that the statement could have been drafted better.”
Much of what Baru — who served between 2004 and 2008 — has written has been long heard on the Capital’s political grapevine, but this is the first time an insider has spilled the beans quite so candidly. On the question of a ‘diarchy’ or two power centres, Baru says there was no such confusion in Singh’s mind. He quotes Singh as having told him, “I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power. The government is answerable to the party.”
According to Baru, Singh shared a good working equation with finance minister P Chidambaram in UPA-I. He would insist that Chidambaram sit with him and finalize the budget speech. In contrast, his relationship with Pranab Mukherjee was far more formal. Mukherjee would apparently not even show Singh the draft of the budget speech till he had finished writing it.
The book also claims that Singh had tried to resist the induction of DMK’s A Raja well before the 2G scam became public knowledge. “But after asserting himself for a full twenty-four hours, (he) caved in to pressure from both his own party and the DMK.”
Baru claims that there was an eagerness to claim all social development programmes as the Sonia Gandhi-chaired National Advisory Council’s initiatives, even though the Bharat Nirman programme came out of the PMO — drafted by the late R Gopalakrishnan, who was joint secretary.
He also claims that on September 26, 2007 — Manmohan Singh’s 75th birthday — Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of general secretaries to wish him. Rahul wanted to extend NREGA to all 500 rural districts in the country. Baru sent a text message to a journalist that this was the PM’s birthday gift to the country. When he was summoned by the PM, he apparently told Singh, “You and Raghuvansh Prasad (then minister for rural development) deserve as much credit.” The PM snapped: “I do not want any credit for myself… Let them take all the credit. I don’t need it. I am only doing my work.”
The book also reveals that Singh had threatened to quit if the UPA buckled under Left pressure and had told Sonia Gandhi to look for his replacement. Even as rumours circulated that Pranab Mukherjee or Sushil Kumar Shinde might be considered as his replacement, the NCP backed him, with Praful Patel telling Baru they would not support anyone but “Doctor Saheb”.
Sonia then reportedly asked Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, to convince the PM not to resign. She also visited Singh at his residence with Pranab Mukherjee. The government was then allowed to proceed with the deal.
However, such shows of resolve from Singh were not forthcoming in UPA-II. Baru cites his own case when the PM wanted to reappoint him as a secretary in the PMO in 2009. However, he had to drop the plan as he was told that the party was opposed to such a move. “To tell the truth, I was dismayed by the PM’s display of spinelessness,” writes Baru.
