Monday 6 January 2014

Manmohan Singh's third flop Press Conference in 9 years Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh's third flop Press Conference in 9 years
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held his third Press Conference in about 10 years of his tenure. Selected journalists were invited to the newly constructed National Media Centre on Friday. As per information, the Prime Minister had issued special invitation cards to his 185 favoured journalists. Out of 1500 journalists accredited with PIB, only 185 such journalists were invited to this Press Conference, who may not ask pointed and sharp questions to the Prime Minister. Obviously, no journalist was invited to this Press Conference from Dainik Vir Arjun, Dainik Pratap and Sandhya Vir Arjun. Forget it; we have become used to such treatment. During last ten years of his tenure, Dr. Mahmohan Singh has not invited us once at his residence. Atalji used to call the entire Press community to his Race Course Residence on many a times in a year, he used to take us on his foreign tours with him, but Manmohan Singh ruled during his entire tenure under political rubber stamp, slavery of bureaucracy and remote control. At least, we failed to understand the purpose of this Press Conference. Of course, we could understand one thing that finally Manmohan Singh is retiring. He will not join the race for the next prime minister ship and Rahul Gandhi would be the next candidate for the post of Prime Minister. In reply to his failure to stop the scams, the Prime Minister said that all these scams happened during the tenure of UPA-1 and after that we had won and came to power. This means the voters did not care much for the allegations of corruption. Although he accepted that there had been mistakes in these matters. He was of the view that the Congress never asked him to resign for his weaknesses. Manmohan Singh, ultimately accepted that inflation had been the main reason for Congress's defeat in the recently concluded Assembly elections. The price rise had alienated people from Congress. But, the reasons for the inflation were beyond our control, as prices of international products were increasing. Under such circumstances, it was difficult for us to control the prices. In other words, the Prime Minister held international developments responsible for the inflation and did not accept that it was the result of wrong policies of the government and scams by Party. Manmohan Singh was holding a Press Conference, whereas by evening, rates of petrol and diesel were being raised. CNG rates have already been increased and increase in the rates of gas cylinders is expected soon. The most painful aspect of this Press Conference perhaps was that he made a direct attack on Narendra Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. Usually a man of few words and of noble temperament, Dr Manmohan Singh said things in the Press Conference, which neither befit any Prime Minister, nor were expected
  of him. Expressing unusual anger, Manmohan Singh lashed out at Narendra Modi, the prime minister candidate of BJP the main opposition party, and said, 'I fail to differ with people who call Narendra Modi, who had ignored the massacre of innocent persons in the 2002 Gujarat riots, as the strongest prime ministerial candidate. If a strong prime minister is measured on the scale of ignoring of massacre of civilians on the road of Ahmadabad, then I don't think that the country needs such a strong Prime Minister. His becoming the prime minister would be disastrous. I have given my best as a prime minister and contributed to the development of the country. I don't consider myself to be a weak prime minister. This will only be decided by the historians, let BJP and its allies may say whatever they like.' The Prime Minister should not have single out a Chief Minister of a country and use such harsh words. Riots also erupted in 1984, then in Assam and recently in Muzaffarnagar, but how far it is logical and proper to talk only of Gujarat riots? And that too, when the Supreme Court, SIT and courts have given clean chit to Modi? The BJP can also file a case of defamation against the Prime Minister. His long political career spanning almost 22 years is coming to an end. He remained Finance Minister for five years, which according to us was his best tenure, because he provided right direction to the country. Then, he had been the leader of the opposition and then Prime Minister for 9 years. In spite of remaining in politics for such a long time, he has been a non-political entity and could not graduate from just being a bureaucrat. We don't know how the historians would describe his tenure. In our view, he had been a total failure, helpless, disappointed and rubber stamp leader, who let his whole life run on remote control.
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