Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his first press conference after taking charge of the government for the second time, seemed a bit nervous while responding to the media queries. Probably that’s the nature of Dr Singh who believes more in action than words.
In the last one year, there have been many thorny issues that have pricked the government. To begin with the positives – the government was successful in handling the global financial crisis. The woman reservation’s bill which got passed in the Rajya Sabha, and the Right to Education Bill, were some key achievements of the UPA 2. But if we look at the negatives - clearly the price rise issue has hurt the government and the people of the country the most.
The Naxal issue has led to more chaos and destruction rather than achievements. Pakistan’s failure on the 26/11 front has also not helped the government.
To measure a performance of any government it is important to take individual performances of the cabinet ministers into consideration. After all a government is like any other team, especially when it involves coalition partners. Over all the performance of the ‘Congress’ ministers has been satisfying. Kapil Sibal, P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee have been the star performers for the government in their respective ministries. Shashi Tharoor , who was in the news throughout for the all the wrong reasons, was show the exit door while Jairam Ramesh has been appreciated for his work as the environment minister but has been a let down for his comments on other ministers.
But the biggest negative for team UPA has been the performance of the coalition partners and their ministers.
Sharad Pawar has made more news in cricket rather than agriculture and agri-products which directly impacts the price of essential food items. He has been a total failure on that front.
Mamata Banerjee has been a visiting minister for the government. She is mostly in Kolkata and her priority is the West Bengal elections next year. She has been soft on the Naxal issue and has openly criticized the government for its policy towards Naxals. Mamata is clearly turning out to be the biggest irritant for the current UPA government much like the ‘Left’ parties who stalled various reform decisions taken by the UPA during its first tenure..
The DMK is the biggest liability for the government in terms of performance. M.K Alagiri and A Raja have been an embarrassment for the government. A Raja’s alleged involvement in the 2G scam, which if proved by the investigating agencies, would be the biggest scam in the history of India. Though the PM has defended Raja, but with a rider that if anyone is found guilty, he will take action. On the other hand, Karunanidhi’s elder son Alagiri has been a complete misfit in the capital so far. He has not been attending the Parliament, even after been reprimanded by the speaker. He has shown no interest in his portfolio so far.
But Manmohan Singh’s biggest problem is that he can’t take ministers from coalition partners to task. He can’t pressurize them as he has to keep this coalition intact for the UPA to last a full 5-year term. The first year is a very short duration for any government to be judged as all the major reforms are initiated only from the third-year onwards. If the first tenure saw the rise of Manmohan Singh as an effective political leader; this tenure would be a test of Singh’s ability to extract good performances from his team. No one doubts Singh’s potential as an individual performer but if his other ministers do not perform in this tenure, it would dent Singh’s legacy.
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