Real Face of Manmohan Singh: The Traitor
anshul jain
Manmohan ‘Machiavelli’ Singh shows his true colours
Bit by bit, Manmohan Singh’s Machiavellian nature is being unmasked.
Read the following Article:
He has been playing games all along but his carefully cultivated image of being this helpless, honest guy caught up in the vortex of corruption has saved him the blushes. His humble looks, weak voice, and soft persona have led us to believe that he is a saint in Race Course Road.
But the mask is beginning to fray at the edges – if not fall off completely. Here are some instances of Manmohan Singh’s dubious games – and why he has never yet been caught out.
• In 1996, Manmohan Singh turned on his mentor and the man who made him famous as the country’s reformer – Narasimha Rao. Soon after the Congress tasted defeat in 1996, Singh tried to distance himself from Rao and his JMM bribery scandal, claiming at a Congress party meeting that the PM “like Caesar’s wife” must be above suspicion. Rao had outlived his utility for Singh, and he was trying to build bridges with Sonia Gandhi now. Singh essentially bit the hand that fed his reputation.
• Manmohan Singh is widely given credit for sticking to his guns and backing the nuclear deal. But we now know that he had no such views from former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice autobiography, which said that Singh was not keen on the deal. It was Natwar Singh who championed the nuke deal. In due course, Natwar Singh ended in the doghouse, and Singh owned the deal.
• However, we should still give Singh credit for finally pushing the deal through even at the cost of risking his government. But this is where Manmohan Singh the politician played his cards beautifully. He did not risk his government just on a whim and a fancy – though that is the public image, that the man stood up for a principle, never mind the consequences. Even before the Left had withdrawn support to the government, he had roped in Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party to support the government and the deal. And that’s how Singh pulled it off. Clearly, this was smart, but it gives the lie to Singh’s image that he plays no politics and is only an honest-to-good economist caught in badland.
But Manmohan Singh’s true colours emerged best in the 2G scam – which he completely failed to stop. His first folly was when he agreed to let Dayanidhi Maran be the sole arbiter of spectrum. Apparently, Manmohan Singh had agreed to let Maran have his way. Then he changed his mind and tried to get a group of ministers to decide spectrum policy. But when Maran cornered him on his previous agreement, Singh backed off again. (Read all about it here). So much for a PM standing his ground on matters of principle, or wanting to be above suspicion “like Caesar’s wife.”
• He brought the Caesar’s wife argument again when he tried to avoid a Joint Parliamentary probe in the 2G scam – and offered to meet Murli Manohar Joshi’s Public Accounts Committee and answer questions. Here he upstaged the party which was trying to keep him out – the obvious idea being to project a holier than thou image to the public when he was at the vortex of the 2G scam.
• The most glaring case of loose ethical standards came up with Raja. When Manmohan Singh discovered that Raja had given away licences in January 2008 in a wayward fashion, he knew something wrong had been done. But instead of stopping the loot, he told his principal secretary to keep “the PMO at arm’s length” from the 2G issues. That’s all he cared about: his image, not the reality of the loot he could have stopped. And after it was all, Chidambaran drafted a note on 15 Januarywhich made it look like he wanted Raja’s actions to be forgotten.
His latest effort to use Pranab Mukherjee to deflect blame for the 2G scam towards Chidambaram is one of a piece with the same strategy of getting someone else to carry the can for his own shenanigans and impotence in the face of Raja’s recalcitrance.
• And just in case you think this is all make-believe, here’s the latest in the PM-Pranab-Chidambaram power politics. According to columnist Virendra Kapoor, even though Pranab Mukherjee has, by seniority, been the one to preside over the cabinet in the PM’s absence, a recent note by the Cabinet secretary says that in his absence, “either the minister of finance or the minister of home affairs may remain in Delhi during the period of the Prime Minister’s absence.”
• To compound things, Kapoor quotes a 22 October note, which says that the “Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs will, in the Prime Minister’s absence, be presided over by the senior-most minister.” Why not name Pranab? Or even Chidambaram? Clearly, Manmohan Singh wants his two senior-most ministers to be at each others’ throats and mutually suspicious so that in case Sonia Gandhi wants an alternative, neither of them will fit the bill.
Former Planning Commission member YK Alagh and Digvijaya Singh have been variously credited with this quote on Manmohan Singh – that he is “an over-rated economist and an under-rated politician.”
Quite. He is Machiavelli incarnate.
--
Anshul Jain
Regional Coordinator,Eastern Zone
Ranchi (Jharkhand), India
Ph: 0651-6522632 (O)
Cell: 099391 67396
