By Indranil Banerjea
The recent controversy over two memoirs by insiders in the UPA regime has once again confirmed what has been widely known all along. Prime minister Manmohan Singh is a puppet in the hands of the Congress boss Sonia Gandhi and others, including leaders of various constituents of the UPA. What it says about Singh himself is of relatively less significance than what it has actually done to the institutional integrity and dignity of the constitutional office of the prime minister. The latter stands duly diminished.
Thanks to the greed of Singh to stick to the prime ministerial gaddi, come what may, even if it meant humiliating himself and undermining grossly the majesty of that office, we have had a grotesque arrangement, where an extra constitutional authority has openly usurped the powers of the highest executive office in the land. Sanjay Gandhi was widely pilloried for being the extra constitutional authority in Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. But our collective sense and sensibilities have so dulled that when Sonia Gandhi and her son act as the extra constitutional authorities, there is little protest. We have come to accept the illicit arrangement under which the formal holder of the prime minister’s office is fully subservient to the head of the ruling party and her son.
After nearly 10- years of this flagrant abuse of the constitutional system, it is hoped the system of government will revert to its original order after the May 16 electoral verdict. Singh’s former media advisor, Sanjay Baru’s book, The Accidental prime minister documents how the real authority of the prime minister vested with Sonia Gandhi, how ministers took him for granted, feeling accountable to the Congress boss, or, in the case of those belonging to the allies, to their respective party leaders, how Singh took the path of least resistance, content in sticking to the high office while being wholly unmindful of its constitutional demands. In other words, the nominated PM failed to protect his high office. Here was a prime minister who was not even allowed the minimum courtesy of choosing his own key aides, with Sonia Gandhi nominating her own favourites in vital positions in the prime minister’s office.
Small wonder, then, as Baru has recorded in his book, crucial files were lugged to 10- Janpath for decisions by the de facto prime minister, a charge denied pro forma by the PMO, though there are few takers for that denial. There is a plethora of other evidence to buttress the view that Singh took the path of least resistance while ministers in his government ran riot, plundering the exchequer for private greed. Even on the rare occasion a weak and wavering Singh sought to prevent this broad daylight larceny of the public purse he was overruled — and he was happy merrily sticking to the kursi, instead of putting an end to this loot. A weak man who would stick to the prime minister’s post, rather than prevent the abuse of the government for private greed, Singh clearly had no strong principles.
As Baru says, the PM himself was clean but did not mind if his colleagues dipped into the national till. But what use is a Raja who does not raid the treasury himself, but looks on passively when his vazirs do? All because this Raja wants to cling to that office. This is the worst form of greed which probably has inflicted far more damage on the constitutional system than even an A. Raja or a Pawan Kumar Bansal have. The conclusion from Baru’s book is inescapable. It is unwise to separate political authority from constitutional authority. The original diarchy, as practiced in the British India, had a historical and administrative context. In free India, its revival has proved dangerous for the health of the polity. Sonia Gandhi wanted to have her cake and eat it too — appropriate credit for any or all good work it may have done while shifting all discredit for scams and mismanagement to others.
Indeed, the second memoir in a week, of former coal secretary P.C. Parakh too endorses the broad picture of the government depicted in Baru’s book. There were “limitations in which the PM functioned”, as he was unable to counter vested interests in his own government and party. Parakh suggests that the loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crores estimated by the CAG in the coal scam was “conservative,” that is, the actual loss could be much higher, from the wilful allocation of hundreds of coal blocks and mines to hand picked parties by the prime minister when he himself was his own coal minister. Tellingly, Parakh wonders why Singh himself was not listed as an accused in the case in which he and the noted industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla figured as accused. These stinging exposures of the workings of the UPA government by two insiders on the eve of Singh’s certain retirement should serve as a warning to the voters against electing another weak and unstable government.
After the May 16 verdict, a strong prime minister who is a leader in his own right must tenant 7- Race Course Road for the next five years. That is absolutely necessary for India to be able to not only clear the enormous mess being left behind by the UPA but to return the country on the path of high economic growth. INAV