Steer clear

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quite upset at his name being on Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s slate of candidates for president. He insisted the Congress issues a clarification before he embarked on a tour of Mexico and Brazil. His fear was no one at the G20 meeting would take him seriously, if he went there while his party was considering sending him up the ladder. He said if there was no clarification, he would not go. The party had to then issue an unambiguous statement that it “could not spare Dr Manmohan Singh from the government till 2014”. It was like an extension of a bureaucrat’s term, which is usually couched as “he will continue in his post till further orders”.