'Sonia weakened Manmohan'

In a book that has sent ripples across the political establishment for its timing, Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his first term, has said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi slowly chipped away at the authority of the Prime Minister's Office, created a parallel power structure and left a weakened prime minister who "allowed himself to become an object of such ridicule in his second term in office."
In a book — "The Accidental Prime Minister — The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh" — that hit the stands yesterday, Baru, who now works with a thinktank, said so weak was Manmohan Singh that he also failed to defend his (Baru's) promised reappointment after the 2009 election victory as secretary in the PMO and tamely surrendered to the party's veto.
Giving several instances of Manmohan Singh capitulating to the extra-constitutional authority of Sonia Gandhi and refusing to assert himself, Baru wrote: "Initially, I saw his subservience as an aspect of his shy and self-effacing personality, but over time I felt, like many, that this might be his strategy for political survival."
"I, like millions of his middle-class supporters, feel tragically cheated that he has allowed himself to become an object of such ridicule in his second term in office, in the process devaluing the office of the prime minister."
The BJP promptly reacted with a I-told-you-so, with party leader M Venkaiah Naidu saying, "I have been saying from day one, PM presides, Madam decides."
The Congress, battling countrywide negative perceptions about the government and widely expected to do badly in these polls, was left red-faced.