BJP targets ‘The Accidental PM’

New Delhi: ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, the book of former Media Adviser to PM, has provided ammunition to the BJP to target Manmohan Singh. Since Sanjay Baru was insider in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the BJP felt Baru was an eye-witness of how the PM meekly surrendered to Sonia Gandhi and lowered the stature of PMO. L K Advani said Baru’s book only confirms what has been widely known to one and all. “When I first described Manmohan as the weakest PM since Independence, my own party colleagues felt I was being too harsh on such a good man. The book of Baru only confirms what we have been saying all along,” Advani said.

Even Arun Jaitley shared the impression that Baru’s book only confirmed what the country ordinarily suspected. “Even the venue for the funeral of former PM Narsimha Rao was decided on collateral considerations rather than the based on desire of family,” he said. The PM has to take most of the decisions approved and ratified by Sonia Gandhi. All sensitive subjects have to be discussed with the person outside the government. The appointments of key officials would be regulated by 10, Janpath. “Contracts, such as the coal blocks allocations, were allotted by the party,” he said. Arun Jaitley said, “On the eve of relinquishing the office, PM must seriously introspect as to how his tenure impacted on the institution of Prime Minister. Did he have the last word on all subjects? Or is it the system of the original Communist states that was operating, where the party General Secretary was always more important than the Head of the Government.”

Agreeing that in a parliamentary democracy, the party system is an essential requirement, Jaitley, however, felt the accountability in democracy is of the elected representatives and not of the party office-bearers. It is the PM and his Council of Ministers, which, through the parliament are accountable to the people. Jaitley said amongst various institutions, which have been dwarfed in the UPA regime, the principal one was the office of the PM itself. Baru’s book confirmed this. Prime Ministers are known not by the number of years they have spent in office, but by the footprints they leave behind. The Prime Ministership is not an employment. It is public service and an exercise by which the leadership is provided to the people, he added.