The Hindu : Front Page : Combative Manmohan a new phenomenon

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Thursday, Mar 06, 2008
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Combative Manmohan a new phenomenon

Harish Khare

NEW DELHI: Many prime ministerial aides have found themselves exasperated at Manmohan Singh’s preference for bland, give-no-offence-to-anyone prose over their sharply-worded, cogently-argued drafts.

On Wednesday, Dr. Singh seemed to have discovered the joys of partisan rhetoric.

In his reply in the Lok Sabha to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, he displayed a hitherto-unsuspected capacity for parliamentary combat and political partisanship. He ended up giving by far his best parliamentary performance as Prime Minister.

The tenor and content of the Prime Minister’s Lok Sabha speech — he repeated the formulations and provocations later in the Rajya Sabha also — should suggest that the ruling coalition is finally getting into the mood for a grand electoral face-off with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.

More significantly, the government seems to have decided to take head on the BJP’s Hindutva-centric political pitch. For the first time, the Prime Minister was unapologetic for wanting to give a policy break for the deprived sections, including the minorities.

Dr. Singh even made bold to say that he would plead “guilty” to L.K. Advani’s charge of “appeasement” of the minorities. No circumlocution, no ambiguity. A Prime Minister simply reaffirming the secular polity’s commitment to inclusive governance.

No less combative was Dr. Singh in defending his government’s new deal for the farmers. In the process, he minced no words in accusing the NDA regime of causing “distress” to the agriculture sector.

What must have taken the Opposition benches by surprise was his rhetorical over-kill when he suggested that having first caused “distress” to the farmers and then fobbing them off with “pittance” the NDA leaders had no business shedding tears for them. Never before had the Lok Sabha heard this kind of sharp and partisan words from Dr. Singh.

Repeatedly, the Prime Minister mentioned the Leader of the Opposition by name. It would appear that the Prime Minister has been wanting to return the compliment. In the last four years, Mr. Advani has taunted Dr. Singh as “the weakest prime minister.” Today, Dr. Singh served notice on Mr. Advani that it would no longer be a one-way affair.

Nor did Dr. Singh allow himself to be pushed on the back foot in defending the record of his government on internal security. Rather, he kept arguing that internal security was too important to be a subject matter for partisan debate, but he nevertheless did manage to take pot-shots at Mr. Advani’s stewardship of the Home Ministry. The rapier was twisted further when he recalled the “shameful” spectacle of a foreign minister (Jaswant Singh) escorting terrorists to Kandahar.

In the Rajya Sabha, the Prime Minister was not hesitant in trying to divide the Opposition. He quoted to his advantage the former National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra’s endorsement of the India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, as also paid his respect to the “Bhishma pithamaha of Indian politics”— Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Congress benches were gleeful that — to quote a Minister of State — he “gave it back to Mr. Advani.”

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was the first to compliment Dr. Singh on his performance. She also prompted her son Rahul Gandhi to congratulate the Prime Minister — the advice was promptly followed. Having predictably encountered disruption from the NDA benches in the Lok Sabha, Dr. Singh did not flinch from repeating his litany of charges against the NDA in the Rajya Sabha. At last, the Prime Minister had arrived politically.

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