Dr’s message: Be Patient

Dismissing comments that Sonia Gandhi was the Super PM, he said: ‘‘The insinuation that there are two centres of power has no basis.’’

To another question, he admitted that though he had never aspired to the post of Prime Minister, he did not feel overwhelmed by the burden of office. It was ‘‘a great challenge, honour and opportunity’’ to hold the top job, and he was clearly enjoying it.

This may not exactly have been visible but in keeping with his image of being more an administrator than a politician, Singh—for the most part— stuck to standard bureaucratese with large dollops from the Common Minimum Programme while replying to a wide range of questions from the economy and foreign relations to tainted ministers and inter-state water disputes.

A refrain that ran through most of his answers was: be patient, we are just 100 days old, we were not given the ‘‘indulgence’’ of a ‘‘honeymoon.’’

But that the politician in him is slowly but surely emerging was also apparent when he dexterously handled contentious issues on ideology—making it clear that while he was committed to the UPA’s vision of an “inclusive” India, he would not carry out the ideological battle quite in the manner of his more passionate colleagues such as Arjun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar. To a question on Aiyar’s comments on V D Savarkar that has unleashed a storm in the saffron parivar, the Prime Minister said they were Aiyar’s ‘‘personal views and not that of the government.’’ Stating that ‘‘I do not believe any good is achieved by speaking ill of the dead,’’ the Prime Minister refused to either endorse or reject Aiyar’s views on the grounds that ‘‘history provides us the luxury to interpret in more ways than one.’’

His comments on the drive to detoxify history textbooks was equally equivocal. ‘‘Certain distortions’’ had crept into textbooks in the last five or six years that need to be corrected, he said. But went on to add: ‘‘I am opposed to fundamentalism of all kinds—fundamentalism of the right or of the Left.’’

To a question on the contentious issue of reservations in the private sector, Singh indicated that a more far-reaching Mandalisation process may be in the offing. ‘‘We do feel that opportunities for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, OBCs and similarly placed disadvantaged groups in the private sector has to be enlarged.’’

The Group of Ministers set up last week would consult the private sector ‘‘to see what is possible without legislation… our hope is that private sector will show more sensitivity’’ on the issue, he said.

He smartly handled the ‘‘tainted ministers’’ question by pointing out there was no law preventing such candidates from contesting for Parliament. ‘‘If the law allows them to become MPs and then expects us not to respect the people’s mandate (by making them ministers), it is inconsistent.’’

Much of what Singh said at the press conference had been said before—in the CMP, in his Independence Day speech, in his statements in Parliament and elsewhere. But it was not the substance of his replies but the ease and confidence with which he took all questions (at his intervention, the press conference went much beyond the stipulated time) that was the hallmark of his first formal interaction with the media.

If his meeting with the NDA leaders in his chambers in Parliament the day before the Finance Bill was passed marked a turning point in his public image—from being a “bechara” PM to a man who could be firm to the point of being rude—today’s meet was an attempt to show the world that self-effacing as he may be, he was no longer shy of being in command.

The only questions he ducked were about the needless doctoring by his spin doctors (‘‘I don’t know what my spin doctors are saying’’), on when he would expand his cabinet (‘‘you will no doubt hear about it when it does take place’’) and on whether he would contest a Lok Sabha seat (‘‘I have not applied my mind to the question.’’).