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Unimportance of being Manmohan Singh
THE Manmohan Singh's government is 100 days old. It is too short a period to judge its performance, particularly when the BJP has not allowed even parliament, much less the administration, to settle down to normal functioning. Another limitation the Congress has faced is that since it has never been part of a coalition it has not been aware of its constraints. Still 100 days are 100 days.
What strikes one straightaway is that there is no focus in governance. Manmohan Singh is the prime minister but Congress president Sonia Gandhi is all over. She is the main power and her policy, tailored by the coterie around her, counts. Long before the elections, whenever people thought of ousting the BJP-led government, they would wish if Sonia Gandhi were to stay as the Congress president and nominate Manmohan Singh the prime minister, things would work perfectly. Both are in position.
But what has raised the eyebrows is that Sonia Gandhi has come to combine the two positions, the Congress presidentship officially and the prime ministership unofficially. People want to see Manmohan Singh visibly ruling. But when she goes to Chennai to release a stamp in memory of Murosali
Maran, she usurps the territory which belongs to the prime minister. An official function becomes the DMK show. It is not a healthy precedent to set.
The real criterion to assess 100 days is to find out how far the common minimum programme (CMP) has been implemented. How many jobs have been created and how less arduous is the life of the common man than before? Inflation has nearly doubled since the new government has taken over. The budget was supposed to be cutting new grounds. But it has not set
the Yamuna on fire. The government has not yet been able to decide the quantum of FDI to be allowed in the insurance or telecommunication sectors.
Two other disconcerting developments are that too many retired hands have been recruited and too many committees have been constituted. Both tell upon the government's performances. One lacks the dynamism which the prolonged experience kills, while the second delays the decision that retards growth.
Understandably, the Congress had to accommodate many power-seekers because the party has been in the wilderness for over a decade. Even after many undeserving appoint-
ments, the list has not exhausted yet. The inner party quarrel continues over the distribution of loaves.
There is some weight in the allegation that those who have been loyal to Sonia Gandhi have been rewarded, whether in or outside the party. Some old hands have come to be preferred because they were the ones who came into contact with her when her husband was prime minister more than 15 years ago.
But the biggest problem is that Sonia Gandhi is restricting the space of the prime minister. One, the process of
nominating Manmohan Singh when the Congress party wanted her was bound to lessen his stature. The other frighteningly true is that she has institutionalised her position which is one rung above the prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi does not have to prove anything. Nor does she have to suffer from the paranoid of insecurity. Her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi had the same obsession and split the Congress in 1969. The country has suffered a lot since because the split provided the Jan Sangh, the BJP's predecessor, an opportunity to make room in the name of religion. Secular forces, divided as they were, did little to put up a fight against communalism or casteism.
Manmohan Singh can never be a threat to her. He does not even have a political base. Nor has he ever sought to build one. He has been a civil servant all his life, disciplined and devoted to file work. He has more facets, not merely an economist. But Sonia Gandhi's attitude has not given him a levelplaying field. He knows that the party president is above the prime minister but this does not have to be dinned in every time. On the Independence Day, when all eyes were fixed on the prime minister, she arranged the Congress session in Delhi. It is to the media's
credit that it did not give her publicity but otherwise she imagined that her speech would have more prominence than that of Manmohan Singh.
The Congress president trying to assert supremacy over the prime minister is nothing new. Congress president K Kamaraj made Lal Bahadur Shastri the prime minister but the latter was soon pushed into the background. Indira Gandhi did even worse. She ousted the old guard, including Congress president Nijalingappa, and reduced the party to a personal fiefdom. Sonia Gandhi has no such compulsions because Manmohan Singh has no ambition to build his own base. He would serve the government as long as she wants him to do and then
withdraw.
The two unofficial committees, which Sonia Gandhi heads, dilutes the authority of the cabinet. The first one to ensure the implementation of CMP enjoys untrammeled authority. It is an extension of the PMO, maybe, because of financial and procedural difficulties. But the result is that the PMO as such has suffered. So much so, the Congress leaders, including ministers, pursue the committee members who reportedly enjoy the real power.
I recall Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru constituting a Citizens Com-
mittee during the India-China war in 1962. He made Indira Gandhi as its chairperson and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister D P Mishra secretary. As days went by, the committee became powerful because it basked in the glory of Nehru. This was not to the liking of Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri never but he could not help it.
Still another unofficial committee is for coordination. The Prime Minister is only a member. What message it is supposed to send? When the ruling United Progressive Alliance is already there, discussing and debating the implementation of CMP, the creation of the coordination committee only suggests that key decisions will be
taken there first and in the cabinet later. Sonia Gandhi's authority comes to be entrenched further because she is the chairperson. On the other hand, Manmohan Singh's own diffidence comes in the way. He does not let any minister feel that the prime minister is more than a leader among the equals. Even otherwise, Congress leaders like HRD Minister Arjun Singh and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee do not think that they are answerable to the prime minister. They consider Manmohan Singh much junior to them.
Manmohan Singh should realise that he represents the tone and tenor of governance. It is his business to ensure that the government does not give the public a distorted picture. At present, the government looks too dispersed, too disseminated and too diffused. Sonia Gandhi's preeminence does not do any good. But the unfortunate part is that the prime minister prefers to take the back seat. This affects the government's prestige.
This makes it all the more necessary that Manmohan Singh should seek election to the Lok Sabha which represents the House of people. He will not be challenging Sonia Gandhi but only proving his popularity among the people. A prime minister cannot stay as the Rajya Sabha member for long. Nonetheless, Sonia Gandhi did well by standing in the line of ministers and some other VIPs for saying bon voyage to Manmohan Singh on his first trip abroad as prime minister. Such gestures are necessary because the unimportance of Manmohan Singh is beginning to be noticed.
Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.