The cuckoo in the nest

As was only to be expected, Sanjaya Baru’s book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, has been slammed by the Prime Minister’s Office and far more furiously by the Congress party which is obviously enraged more by the timing of the book’s release than its contents. While the PMO declared that the author — a former media adviser to the Prime Minister — had “misused” and “exploited” his “privileged position” for “personal gain”, Congress spokespersons went ballistic. They accused Baru of “betrayal”, “greed”, malice” and “sensationalism”. One of them even alleged that the former official was “close to a Narendra Modi strategist”.

No one has, however, been able to contradict the facts cited by the author, most of which are already well-known. Finance minister P. Chidambaram’s statement that he had taken a “number of decisions in consultation with the Prime Minister alone” is neither here nor there. The controversial book doesn’t suggest that the government could not take any decision on its own. Its main point is that the Congress president interfered with the government’s functioning so excessively that the authority of the Prime Minister was undermined.

Beyond that I do not wish to say anything about the book because my main purpose is to tell the story of the diarchy that Sonia Gandhi formed with Manmohan Singh from its beginning, when it was inevitable, until its dismal failure that has landed the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance into a doleful mess.

It was only in March 1998 that Mrs Gandhi took over as Congress president. Thirteen months later, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government, headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, fell for want of a single vote, she made the mistake of claiming that her party had mustered the support of “272 Lok Sabha MPs (a majority on the House) with more coming in”. This proved to be an empty boast. In the subsequent election in September 1999, the NDA returned to power with a comfortable majority, and the Congress party’s tally plummeted to the historic low of 114.

To lead her party from this pathetic state to power in 2004 (by then the Congress had been in the wilderness for eight years and the dynasty for 15) was a tremendous achievement of Mrs Gandhi, and hers alone.

Having dismounted the Pachmarhi high horse of going it alone, she had also paved the way for a Congress-led coalition. The office of Prime Minister was hers by right. But she refused to accept it and decided to entrust it to Dr Singh. She announced this to the Congress Parlia-mentary Party immediately after being elected its leader unanimously. Those who remember the scene would recollect that every single member of the CPP begged her to reverse her decision. With the same objective other party members and hangers-on took to her house a procession so bizarre as to be ridiculous.

In spite of this tamasha the Congress president wisely stuck to her resolve. For, in the circumstances then prevailing her foreign origin was almost certain to cause difficulties — BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s threat to get her head shaved, sleep on the floor and eat only parched grams being the least of them. Equally sound was her choice of Dr Singh for nomination as PM. A man with enviable reputation for both integrity and ability, he had earned high praise as finance minister in P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government. No less importantly, he was not one to behave like the proverbial “cuckoo in the nest” that refused to leave when asked.

It was, of course, crystal clear that ultimate power would reside at 10 Janpath, and not at 7 Race Course Road, the Prime Minister’s House. Even so, this system would have worked very well provided two things were done: First, that only the Congress president and the Prime Minister should have been privy to whatever was discussed between them, and the PM was enabled to act as the head of government should. Second, the Congress party, especially members of the Council of Ministers, should have been told firmly to treat Dr Singh as captain of the team and obey him. This did not happen. No wonder various ministers, including brash junior ones, defied the Prime Minister. Other elements in the party, especially those known to be “close to Number 10”, contributed their might to undermine the PM.

Yet the situation remained reasonable during UPA-I even though the PM asserted himself on the Indo-US nuclear deal and even threatened to resign. Ironically, things worsened during UPA-II, after the party returned to power in 2009 with a much stronger mandate.

Dr Singh’s positive image was a factor in this impressive electoral victory, but not the only one. The fight on the campaign trail was led by Mrs Gandhi. For the party the credit was due only to her. Had

Dr Singh contested an election to the Lok Sabha and won it, his position would have been stronger. But he didn’t do so. Economic decline, rising inflation and soaring corruption soon overtook the famous electoral victory.

The Congress Party, a virtual fiefdom of the Gandhi dynasty, became increasingly unsupportive of the Prime Minister. Came a day when so prestigious a journal as the Economist described Dr Singh as “a retainer of the Gandhi family”.

The good doctor must accept his share of blame for failing to resign on several occasions when it would have given the Congress the shock it needed. Strangely, he refrained from taking this step even when an ordinance passed by his Cabinet with him in the chair was denounced as “nonsense” that needed to be “torn and thrown away” by Congress

vice-president Rahul Gandhi.