New book's claim fuels controversy
Narendra Modi, tipped to be India's next prime minister, yesterday latched onto a new tell-all book that alleges current premier Manmohan Singh was a powerless puppet during his years at the top.
However, the Indian Prime Minister's Office yesterday rubbished as "baseless and mischievous" the contention of former media adviser to Indian PM Sanjaya Baru that PMO files were seen by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
"The statement being attributed to a former media adviser to the prime minister that PMO files were seen by the Congress president, Smt Sonia Gandhi is completely baseless and mischievous. It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been shown to Smt Sonia Gandhi," PMO spokesman Pankaj Pachauri said in a statement here.
He was responding to the claims by Baru in his book "Accidental Prime Minister — The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh" and comments to media that the Prime Minister's principal secretary Pulok Chatterjee would seek "instructions" from Gandhi on important PMO decisions.
The book, written by a former media adviser to Manmohan, hit the bookstores this weekend and hands ammunition to Modi's Hindu nationalist opposition during a bitter, marathon election campaign under way.
It portrays Manmohan as subservient to ruling Congress party president Sonia Gandhi who called the shots although she holds no official government position.
Modi, who has campaigned on a platform of being a strong, decisive leader who can turn around the flagging economy, brought up the book while campaigning in the south, calling the government "remote-controlled."
"Two days ago a book has come out, an official who used to work in the Manmohan Singh government and his confidant has written this book. He has said this government is not being run by Manmohan Singh Ji," Modi told a rally in Haveri.
Manmohan, 81, credited with leading India through radical reforms in 1991 when he was finance minister, is retiring at the elections after 10 years at the helm. Sonia Gandhi chose Manmohan to become premier in 2004 when Congress won elections.
Traditionally, the president of India's ruling party is also premier. But Gandhi, who led Congress to power in 2004 and 2009, turned down the job, fearing her Italian birth would become an explosive political issue as Hindu nationalists said her foreign origin made her unfit to rule India.
Critics have long charged that Sonia held the real reins of power in the Manmohan administration but Baru's book is the first by a close advisor to the prime minister to make that claim.
Manmohan's spokesman Pankaj Pachauri said on Saturday the book "smacks of fiction" and alleged Baru misused a "privileged position" for "commercial gain". Baru, who left as media adviser in 2008, replied he was "amused" by the reaction.
The book's release comes as India's six-week election is in full swing, with Modi's BJP expected to win the largest number of seats and sweep Congress from power. Results are due May 16.
In the book, Baru said Manmohan decided early on to "surrender" to sonia and quotes the premier as saying he had "to accept the party president is the centre of power".
The author added that Manmohan had little authority over his cabinet and a senior bureaucrat would seek Gandhi's "instructions on the important files to be cleared by the PM".
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