In a debate moderated by TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, panelists -- Dr Sudhanshu Trivedi, National Spokesperson, BJP & Political Advisor to Rajnath Singh; Swapan Dasgupta, Senior Journalist; TSR Subramaniam, Former Cabinet Secretary; and Vinod Mehta, Editorial Chairman, Outlook -- discuss the issue of Sanjaya Baru's book make revelations that Congress President Sonia Gandhi's instructions were sought on PMO decisions.
A controversy erupted on April 11 over a claim in a book by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's former Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru that Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterjee sought Congress President Sonia Gandhi's instructions on important files to be cleared by the PM. Baru maintained that his book was a "balanced account" UPA-I and he had recorded "a lot of achievements" of Manmohan Singh and successes of the government that got them another term in 2009. In his book 'The Accidental Prime Minister -- The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh', Baru has written, "Pulok, who was inducted into the Manmohan Singh PMO at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, had regular, almost daily, meetings with Sonia at which he was said to brief her on the key policy issues of the day and seek her instructions on important files to be cleared by the PM. Congress dismissed as "cheap fiction" the claims made in a book written by Sanjaya Baru, former media advisor to PM, that Sonia Gandhi was the remote control in UPA Government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh played a second fiddle to her. Finance Minister P Chidambaram rejeced suggestions that it was Congress President Sonia Gandhi who was running UPA-II. The PMO hit out at Sanjaya Baru, former Media Adviser, saying his book contending that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was undermined by Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi smacks of "fiction" and is a "coloured" view and rubbished as "baseless and mischievous that its files were seen by her. BJP leader Narendra Modi referred to the book penned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's former media advisor Sanjaya Baru and sought answers from Congress president Sonia Gandhi on allegation that "she handled the government files before the PMO". BJP said the book written by former media adviser of Manmohan Singh was an "official confirmation" that he was the "weakest" prime minister and asserted that his office was "dwarfed" during the UPA rule. The BJP also said that on the eve of relinquishing the office Singh must "seriously introspect" as to how his tenure "impacted" on the institution of prime minister. Party patriarch L K Advani led the BJP charge as he referred to his 2009 Lok Sabha campaign in which he had harped about Singh being the "weakest" ever PM and said the book written by Sanjaya Baru confirms what the world already knew. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said that among various institutions which have been dwarfed" in the UPA regime, the "principal one" was the office of the Prime Minister itself. Taking a dig at Singh, he said Prime Ministership is not an employment but a public service and an exercise by which leadership is provided to the people.
