After his interaction with television editors on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be wondering why he has been meeting the press so very sparingly. At the end of the televised event, the two key Opposition parties — BJP and CPI(M) — continued to be highly critical of the government’s handling of corruption and inflation, the two issues on everyone’s mind.
Indeed, after hearing the Prime Minister on the 2G spectrum affair, the sense would not fully dissipate that the government got it more wrong than right in respect of both spectrum allotment and the tardiness in dealing with the fallout, especially in the sloppy handling of A. Raja, the erstwhile communications minister who finally had to be sent packing. The storyline is likely to have been somewhat different if Mr Raja had been got rid of before the CAG report castigated the 2G allotment process in no uncertain terms.
In spite of negative marks on this count, few would deny that Dr Manmohan Singh came through as a sincere leader of the government who is not afraid to make statements that might be deemed politically ill-advised, and one who readily accepts the limitations of the position he is in. (People don’t expect their leaders to be superhuman.) When he said he was not afraid to face a joint parliamentary committee probe in the 2G matter and that it was not on his account that the Opposition’s demand on this score had not been conceded, he as good as said it was the Congress Party’s decision to not agree to a JPC inquiry, not his. This is refreshing candour. Opposition parties are not impartial observers of the scene and they are expected to take the government to task at every opportunity. But the press conference did show that the Prime Minister is an honest and transparent man even if he doesn’t get everything right. With the exposure of a succession of scandals, India had come to harbour a sense of moral injury. Dr Singh talking to the people directly on television does help to ease that sense of hurt.
The back-breaking price rise is a serious problem but it was good to hear the economist in Dr Singh say that if the compulsions of keeping up the growth momentum did not exist, prices could have been handled more smartly, although it was being negatively influenced by international events like a big hike in the prices if petroleum, food and (industrial) commodities. The Prime Minister also pointed to the need for striking compromises (“or we might face elections every six months!”) in a coalition situation. Making this awareness explicit cannot exempt a leader from responsibility. Nevertheless, viewers would have noted the simplicity of the man who is keen to soldier on. If the Prime Minister’s press conference was a regular practice, it is unlikely matters would pile up and speculation of the most unsavoury kind would be rife. A leader who does not communicate with the people generally invites trouble. Jawaharlal Nehru used to have a monthly press conference (not just for editors) and Indira Gandhi met the media quite frequently, as did Morarji Desai. In a democracy it is a good practice for the head of government to seek out opportunities to interact with the press which, in India, is avidly followed.
In holding a press conference the Prime Minister was clearly in a mood to release some pressure on the eve of the Budget Session of Parliament, beginning on Monday. To that extent he may have succeeded. With the BJP seeking to expand the ambit of the JPC, which it wants should now examine not just the 2G matter but all the other scams plaguing the country, Parliament might still be a site for bitter contention, but the government side would have retrieved some ground.