PM as Teflon

Imagine Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. Then imagine what the political situation might have been, in the wake of the Quattrocchi scandal, the telephone-tapping controversy, and the various Central actions in pursuit of the Congress party's illegitimate attempts to gain control of state governments (Bihar, Jharkhand, Goa). With Ms Gandhi at the helm when all this happened, the political temperature would have risen much more than it has in the past 20 months. Her presence at the head of the government would have been like a lightning rod for endless diatribes, her role criticised in every questionable manoeuvre, and many of the government's actions presented as tailor-made opportunity to the opposition for mounting sustained attack. Indeed, it is not even certain that she would have been able to do the kind of nuclear deal that Dr Singh has done with the US, over-riding the discomfort of the atomic energy establishment. It is not hard to imagine the cries about a sell-out and about lack of patriotism, if not worse.

In short, it is very useful to have Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. His innate decency and high standing, his personal integrity and humility, plus the general refusal to believe that he can be up to shady tricks or efforts to undermine the political process, have helped blunt all criticism against the UPA government-except (ironically) from the government's Left allies. The BJP does not know know how to open a fusillade against Dr Singh, and those who are disappointed by the government's failure to push the reform process forward hold their fire because Dr Singh is seen as the right man in the right place. In short, Sonia Gandhi's cleverest move was to decline high office and to make Dr Singh Prime Minister.

But is it Dr Singh's role in the UPA to be its Teflon coating? Or should he be making sure that no wrong is done by the government? It strains credulity for the Prime Minister to say that the government has no role in the conduct of the Central Bureau of Investigation, especially when the government's law officer and the law minister are involved in allowing Ottavio Quattrocchi to get away with his millions, and then exposed when they try to cover their tracks. It also strains credulity when the country has the pretence of the Prime Minister in the role of innocent bystander even as state governments are sought to be hijacked. The Prime Minister cannot argue that he does not interfere with his Cabinet when it decides to send a proclamation to the President on tour in Moscow. Indeed, Dr Singh had earlier defended the Cabinet's decision on Bihar""which has now been held to be illegal and after which the Bihar governor has resigned. Does Dr Singh have an explanation, about his own accountability?

It has been argued that Dr Singh's mild-mannered reluctance to push the reform process forward is also a blessing in disguise. A determined reformist who is unwilling to accept defeat without trying, might well have provoked the Left to withdraw support to the UPA because the Communists would have been unable to explain to their own support base their propping up of a market-oriented government. And what good would it have done to have Dr Singh replaced by either someone like Pranab Mukherjee or for the UPA to be replaced by some other coalition in less than two years? Inaction therefore becomes virtue""or so goes the argument. When the Teflon works, any argument can be made to sound plausible. But at some stage more people will begin to say: the Prime Minister is either guilty of quite a few improprieties, or he is simply not in charge.