Hyderabad: Timing is of prime importance in business and politics. Released in the midst of elections, former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s first-term media aide, Dr Sanjaya Baru’s book, The Accidental Prime Minister: Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, stirred a controversy and climbed the bestseller charts. PM-designate Narendra Modi had quoted the book in most of his speeches and it probably further dimmed the public view of the former Prime Minister.
Dr Sanjaya Baru makes an interesting addition to the list of the bestseller’s achievement. “If the book hadn’t been written and released at this time, the Congress would have blamed the Prime Minister for the electoral debacle. Now it is struggling to find someone to blame,” Dr Baru said at a session organised by Manthan in Hyderabad on Saturday.
He admits the timing of his book’s release increased its sales, but shrugs off any criticism about its timing. “If I had released it after the elections, Congress leaders would have said I didn’t have the guts to release it when they were in power.”
The controversy has now died down, courtesy the drubbing the Congress received in the elections and Mr Modi’s ability to steal the spotlight. However, interest in the behind-the-scenes proceedings in the PMO continues.
Dr Baru credited the BJP’s victory to Mr Modi’s projection as a leader and the simultaneous “collapse of dignity of the PMO.” “Dr Singh was elected in 2009 because he was a leader then,” he opines. Dr Baru is most defensive of the former PM.
He calls it an arrangement in the Congress government, that credit for any achievement be given to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and blame be taken by the PM.
