For PM, ‘weak’ is the new strong

New Delhi: If a weak Prime Minister can win elections, perhaps it’s better to have them weak. That may be the lesson of 2009 for Lal Krishna Advani, though it’s possibly a lesson learnt too late.
For Manmohan Singh, “weak” is the new strong. What do you know, some experts — and even some from the Ji Rahulji brigade — are beginning to voice suspicion that the incredible Congress and UPA victory may in fact have something to do with the Prime Minister and his image.
Advani called up the “weak Prime Minister” in the evening to congratulate him on his alliance’s victory. He would only be greeting a person who has achieved the extraordinary feat of not fighting an election himself and yet of jointly leading his party to a second term in office.
Speaking of grace, the Prime Minister was not found wanting in his moment of triumph. “I expect all secular parties to forget their past disputes and come together to give this country a strong, stable and purposeful government. We will work in a spirit of comradeship,” he said with Sonia Gandhi by his side.
Comrade Prakash Karat might not find anything to be pleased about the statement but Advani need not fret about the word “secular” because the Prime Minister also invited the Opposition to join in a show of unity to the world at a most difficult time economically.
From anyone else, these words could sound hypocritical but with his slight frame and frail voice and unsmiling face — coupled with his background as a teacher, bureaucrat, reforming finance minister but not meant to be Prime Minister — Singh manages to sound as if he really means it.
When he says that the result was a reflection of the people’s faith in the “visionary leadership of Sonia Gandhi and the sustained hard work by youth leader Rahul”, he doesn’t sound like all the other Congress leaders who still can’t make up their mind whether it’s safe to speak of the Prime Minister in the same breath as that of the party president.
If charges of being a mukhota, to borrow a BJP phrase, didn’t stick to Singh it may be because he isn’t seen to be acting like a sycophant. It’s not for lack of trying on the part of the vociferous Opposition or of a whispering Congress.
If people have voted for the Congress and its alliance led by Sonia, they have also voted for the government headed by Singh and not for some dummy.
He probably did not look weak to them. Not after he told The Telegraph in an interview, “So be it.” If the Left withdrew support to his government over the nuclear agreement, let it. Eventually, that’s what it did and Delhi saw the emergence of a Singh with enough political savvy to cover his back with Samajwadi Party support. Whatever Advani or Narendra Modi may say, it’s not the act of a weak Prime Minister to stake his gaddi on a matter of policy.
All this time he had allowed the BJP chorus of “weak PM, weak PM” to continue — and get louder as the elections approached. He had, of course, had a heart surgery but politics is a cruel game. Singh struck back at Advani and, as the BJP feigned grave injury, it might have been seen as the response of a man who’d been pushed too hard.
If the BJP’s slight of “weak PM” slid off his back, his erstwhile ally CPM’s charge of selling out to the US fell flatter.
When the Congress decided to project him as its choice for Prime Minister — a first for the party — the decision was based on the perception that not only would the “pro-US” tag not discourage the country’s large young constituency, it might even be an advantage.
For the results to be what they have turned out to be, certain other factors might have worked too — and Rahul Gandhi was acknowledging those today: the employment guarantee programme and the farm loan waiver.
If these had an impact in rural India, in urban areas and in industry the belief in Singh and his team to lead the country out of the economic downturn might be greater than in any other political combination.
“India Inc. and opinion-makers felt assured by his transparency and determination to get on top of the crisis, and the poor saw him as a source of succour in troubled times,” a party source said.
The source added that Singh’s image and statements — while insisting that India with 6 per cent growth was faring much better than the developed world under recession, he did not hide the fact that these were indeed tough days — might have shielded the Congress politically from damaging issues such as price rise and job loss.
With the numbers stacked behind him and the Left not following him, Singh is expected to be much more his own man in the second term and may want to have Montek Singh Ahluwalia as his finance minister, among other things.
One thing’s for sure, whether he gets Montek or not, he won’t get to be called weak again.