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| 10, Janpath wields real political authority! | | Manmohan fails to make mark politically: SMS poll | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, May 22 Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, wore a visibly smiling look on Tuesday when many leaders, including Ministers, MPs and mediapersons, called on him, individually and in small groups, to felicitate him for completing three years as head of the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre.
At the same time, even as the country seems to love the affable economist in the blue turban, it is Manmohan Singh's own partymen, though not all, and critics in the Opposition who continue to criticise him for not being a sharp politician. And the Prime Minister is not ignorant of the underlying feeling that he has not been able to wield any political authority. Has Manmohan Singh failed to make a mark politically?
This question became the topic of discussion on CNN-IBN's show 'Face The Nation' on the eve of the completion of three years by Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. On the panel to debate on the question of the day was Congress spokesperson, Jayanthi Natarajan, Rajya Sabha MP and Editor-in-Chief of The Pioneer, Chandan Mitra, CPI member, D Raja, and CNN-IBN national affairs editor, Diptosh Majumdar.
At the beginning of the show, 78 per cent of the viewers indicated through the SMS poll that the Prime Minister had failed to make a mark politically. Was it because he had not taken the agnipariksha (acid test) as is tradition, or in other words, faced an electorate?
“This is an unfair debate and I am appalled that I agreed to be a part of it. It is totally wrong to say that any Congress person feels he has failed to make a mark. It is just the media trying to wedge the party where none exists. He is one of the country’s finest Prime Ministers, he is held in the highest respect by the party and by the people of India. There is no question of whether he is political. Any PM has to be a political person. About Rajya Sabha, I think there have been other PMs who have been elected from the Rajya Sabha. There is no doubt that he would be elected from anywhere”, said Jayanthi Natarajan.
Nevertheless, Manmohan Singh could also be the first Prime Minister to complete a full five-year term as a member of the Rajya Sabha. When the UPA was sworn in as the party in power, the raging debate was of twin centers of power existing, with one at 10, Janpath and the other the Prime Minister. 10, Janpath is official abode of Congress supremo and UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi.
Does that debate still exist? Said Chandan Mitra: “This has been debated over and over again and the unanimous verdict has been over the years that he has been a very ineffective PM (Prime Minister). He is a good man for sure. But there is no stamp of authority on his government. He simply cannot decide on policies whether it is over the OBC or induction or dropping of ministers. He is very often by-passed by his own Cabinet and party members because they know there is a bigger power center outside the Cabinet".
In the previous government, there were ministers who spoke out of turn but in this case perhaps, with the DMK making a unilateral decision, Mani Shankar Iyer speaking out of turn, isn’t his political space being denied to him?“Absolutely. But what is scary about 78 per cent of viewers feeling so is that earlier, we used to say that the PM is not being given political space by 10, Janpath. Now after the Punjab elections, it seems the PM has got into the habit of not having any political space. There is no initiative from 7, Race course road to take away a bit of the power center from 10, Janpath”, said Diptosh Majumdar.
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