A. Surya Prakash boils down five years of Manmohan Singh to four men—Jagadish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Ottavio Quattrocchi and Navin Chawla—in The Pioneer:
“How will history judge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, specially when it evaulates him through the prism of constitutionality and the rule of law?
“As an honourable, ‘secular’ man as his shrill declamations would have believe or as a Prime Minister who lacked the moral fibre to stand up for the Sikh community, of which he was himself a member? As a man who enforced the rule or law or as one who ducked responsibility to help the Italian friend of his mentor? Will history remember him as a man who had deep respect for constitutional and democratic values or as one who sacrificed these values at the altar of political survival and admitted an unfair person to the sanctum sanctorum of democracy—the Election Commission?”
Read the full article: The man behind the mask
Also read: Tarun J. Tejpal on the uber babu
Tags: A. Surya Prakash, Congress, Jagadish Tytler, Manmohan Singh, Navin Chawla, Ottavio Quattrocchi, Sajjan Kumar, Tarun J. Tejpal, The Pioneer, UPA
21 April 2009 at 4:01 pm
Why just 4 babus ? There were many Ministers who should not have been in the Cabinet – or sacked for non performance – had Manmohan Singh asserted his leadership. For eg:
*Pawar presided over a ministry that saw biggest number of farmers suicides, he was busy playing cricket.
*Anbumani Ramdoss was easily the worst with horrible priorities;
*Shibu Soren bill dozed his way to cabinet ;
*Home Minister Patil record has been much debated;
*Lalu got great pr for this work but are trains any safer, hygenic that what
they were 5 years back ? Lalu was gloating in profits his ministry made;
* Defence Ministry was accused of worst scandals
* PC could not roll the reforms that UPA had promised
There are more..perhaps Advani is right in questioning the leadership of Prime Minister Singh..will a true leader tolerate such poor performing Ministers ?
21 April 2009 at 6:59 pm
haha, super headline.
21 April 2009 at 7:17 pm
It is very well known that the Pioneer is edited by Chandan Mitra who is a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP.
21 April 2009 at 7:31 pm
@ Shravan,
chandan Mitra is a MP from BJP. True. So are the facts written in the article.
Right?
21 April 2009 at 7:41 pm
1.Rapist Taslimuddin as a minister
2.Shibu Soren keeps running from CBI for days and the ‘honest’ prime minister does not utter a word.
3.DMK ministers in the cabinet (TR Balu,G Raja) take active help from the PMO,led by this socalled ‘honest’ PM.
4.The sardar can only aggressive at the opposition leader.No such aggro on display for Pakistan(who is decalred a fellow victim of terrorism) and China,who objects to OUR MPs from Arunachal Pradesh visting China on an Indian passport.
without for the congress workers posing as journalists in the media,this bloke is just a congress sycophant.
21 April 2009 at 8:22 pm
Shravan
The Hindu is edited by N Ram who is a card carrying member of CPI (M).
21 April 2009 at 9:06 pm
The public never bothers who edits which paper or not. They are worried about the performance of ministers-moreso they are educated- and want to see the growth. What was the government machinery doing about Satyam? Posterity will definitely evaluate the contributions of each prime minister and Manmohan Singh will not be an exception.
21 April 2009 at 11:02 pm
A. Surya Prakash boils down five years of Manmohan Singh to four men—Jagadish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Ottavio Quattrocchi and Navin Chawla
and one woman Sonia
21 April 2009 at 11:06 pm
Shravan, at least, he’s open about his political affiliation not like the other bigwigs of the media especially those recently ornamented with lotuses.
The congress has awful record in removing people in higher and responsible positions maliciously and replacing them with its stooges.
In 1973, three respected senior-most judges were superseded only because their decisions in Kesavananda Bharati Case rubbed off madame Gandhi Sr. and a stooge who was also junior to many other “surviving” judges was anointed.
Again in 1976 Justice HR Khanna was superseded because he dissented in the famous Habeas Corpus case!
[Citation needed? take: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2508/stories/20080425250808200.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/29/stories/2008022957181300.htm ]
Even now the govt. and its stooges in the media slung mud against a/few judges who in their childhood had attended the drills conducted by an infamous Social Organisation, this fact however holds no effect over their occupation and none of their judgments have been found unfair and lacking merit.
Like in all the cases, when facts are against you, debate the Law! They are debating the lack of transparency in choosing judges(how do you tell a sitting HC judge publicly that he made a significant and stupid mistake in few judgments so he’s not being promoted to SC all the while expecting him to continue in HC!?)
And! The govt. won’t reveal why do they oppose the promotion/selection of certain judges! How fair!
Is not Pakistan better than India in this aspect? It reinstated the sacked judges and its dictator had the courage to explicitly sack them.
Look at their choice of governor for Karnataka, a person who was asked to resign as an union minister on corruption charges! A governor who can meet a Congress flunkey from Delhi in an unearthly hour, who comes straight from the airport to Rajbhavan, but denies appointment to elected representatives of Karnataka!
BJP put an ex-CAG, OK, at least they chose a scholarly gentleman who had a good reputation.
We can forgive Manmohan Singh not contesting Lok Sabha elections, there have been precedents, let it be a new convention but!
How do you expect me to support a leader who has not cast his vote in the last parliamentary and assembly elections!?
For a bloody corporation/muncipal elections these local Congress leaders fly to Madame Gandhi Jr.. then what stopped this sub-ordinate of first order not to go and cast his vote from Assam?
Concerns over his security? health? even if any of these was an issue then it is a serious disqualification for the post of PM.
21 April 2009 at 11:27 pm
@ shravan, facts would remain facts. The article is pretty nice in just presenting facts and not trying to enforce the author’s opinion on us.
We went through horrible-st of times. Manmohan Singh was just un-inspiring. His television address post 26/11 was like a class five recitation act, he readout from a script like a robot.
He was just out of sorts.Sometimes I think, Mr Singh has only woken up now, trying to make his presence felt. I think thats why he is scared of contesting elections…….Where was he for five years ?
22 April 2009 at 7:50 am
Let’s add to Shri Singh’s record this minor matter. Honourable Ambareesh who is not known to attend parliment sessions is minister of state for Information. Does the prime minister know that although the MP claims he has resigned his membership in the LS, he still is a minister who draws a salary without ever spending a minute in his office?
22 April 2009 at 10:13 am
^^^^^
But facts are facts dear!
22 April 2009 at 10:45 am
@Shravan, how does it matter if the article appeared in Pioneer!! Facts are facts.
@ Andy,
You forgot to mention the telecom scandal of Raja worth millions of dollors. MMS was supposed to upset with Raja, but took no action.
My point is – If the same scandals/instances had occurred during NDA, mainstream media would have reacted differently. MMS is treated with kid gloves. No difficult questions asked.
Now a days if you watch so called national news channels (English), its very apparent that they are batting for Congress/Sonia, without any shame. 1 Pioneer for BJP and the rest for Congress. There is no more neutral media in our country.
Only hope for educated ones – is internet.
22 April 2009 at 8:18 pm
I don’t understand why the BJP is not making a issue of MMS not casting his vote in the previous Lok Sabha elections. Imagine if a similar thing had happened in the US, there would have been a public furore and that person would have given up his candidature.