Sanjaya Baru, former media adviser to ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has said the failure of the Congress-led UPA-II government was due to confusion at the top in the Congress about how to build Rahul Gandhi’s personality by destroying Dr. Singh’s personality.
“The Congress ended up destroying Manmohan Singh’s personality, but failed in its efforts to build Rahul’s personality. This ended in complete paralysis of the UPA-II,” said Mr. Baru at the Goa launch of his book The Accidental Prime Minister - The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh at The International Centre Goa (ICG) here on Saturday.
Robin Gupta, former Financial Commissioner in the rank of Chief Secretary, Punjab, released the book. Simultaneously, Mr. Baru released the Marathi version of the book in the presence of publisher Sunil Mehta from Pune and Nandini Sahai, Director, ICG.
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Mr. Baru who served as principal speechwriter to Dr. Singh from 2004 to 2008, said the UPA-I headed by Dr. Singh succeeded because of political consensus and secondly Congress president Sonia Gandhi did not challenge his authority.
However, the problem in the UPA-II was that Ms. Gandhi had to engineer transition from Dr. Singh to Rahul Gandhi.
According to Mr. Baru, the urban middle class liked what Dr. Singh did during his first term, but was disappointed with his second term.
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“UPA-I was not the disaster that UPA-II was. The generation of first time voters was fed up with Dr. Singh’s performance and he was reduced to an object of ridicule. People have followers and detractors. That’s part of politics. But no political leader should run the risk of becoming an object of ridicule,” Mr. Baru said, pointing out the barrage of jokes unleashed by young generation of voters on Twitter and other social media against Dr. Singh since 2012-13.
Mr. Baru said Dr. Singh’s first fatal error was not contesting the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.