“I was not informed, not consulted, over the CBI’s clean chit to Jagdish Tytler,� Manmohan Singh

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Didn;t he claim the same in all the following cases (1) Governor in Bihar abolishes assembly withotu giving anyone chance to show majority after laloo's efforts failed (2)Governor in Jharkhand conspired with Shibru Sorena dn congress to kidnap opposition MLAS (3) Governor in Goa did exactly the same thing (4) CBI relsed bofors money of Quttrochi (5) CBI cud not file extradition demand when Quttrochi was nabebd iN argentina this shameless mumblig man pulls this I was not informed not colsulted card every time .. http://dailypioneer.com/168899/Callous-Congress-feckless-PM.html If we lesser mortals were to be found misleading someone intentionally, we would be accused of telling a lie. To be called a liar is as good as being told your integrity quotient is zero. Telling the truth, as we all know, may be difficult but is considered a virtue; telling a lie is sinful, a vice to which the feckless and the irresolute are given. But what about someone who holds high office and misleads the nation in the most casual (some would say sly) manner? Does vice become a virtue when your are the Prime Minister of India? I refer to Mr Manmohan Singh’s comment on Friday in response to a query on the shameful Jagdish Tytler-Sajjan Kumar episode. “I was not informed, not consulted, over the CBI’s clean chit to Jagdish Tytler,” he told members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps whom he hosted for tea. In this age of lazy journalism it is unlikely anybody will bother to raise a doubt or two about the Prime Minister’s claim. But this needs to be done, if only to expose him for what he is, which is definitely far-removed from what he would like everybody to believe he is. So let’s check out the facts. The CBI, contrary to popular notion, does not report to the Ministry of Home Affairs; it reports to the quaintly named Department of Personnel and Training, otherwise known as ‘DoPT’, which is headed by a Minister of State. The DoPT is part of the portfolio of responsibilities held by the Prime Minister to whom the Minister of State in charge of that department reports. While routine administrative issues are directly dealt with by the Minister of State, he or she keeps the Prime Minister fully informed on sensitive issues, including high profile cases being handled by the CBI. In fact, files related to such cases are routed through the Prime Minister’s Office, which is known to have issued instructions to the CBI on certain occasions — recall the letter written by a senior PMO official, known for his proximity to 10 Janpath, directing the agency to deal with one of the accused in the Ayodhya case in a particular manner. In brief, it is an intimate relationship, never mind the Supreme Court’s directive that the CBI should function as an autonomous agency. It is highly unlikely, and that is putting it mildly, that the CBI would have sought closure of the cases against Tytler without discussing it with the DoPT, which in effect means the PMO. In other words, Mr Singh would have been aware of the CBI’s move. For Mr Singh to now say “I was not informed, not consulted” is more than astounding. But there’s a pattern to his denying any knowledge about the actions of the CBI and pretending great surprise every time the Government has been caught on the wrong foot. When the CBI manipulated the de-freezing of two London bank accounts where Ottavio Quattrocchi is believed to have parked his share of the Bofors payola, thus helping the Italian wheeler-dealer who is a fugitive from Indian law to grab the money and run, similar lack of knowledge was proclaimed. Indeed, the Prime Minister has rarely been upfront; on the contrary, effortlessly and with great ease, he has excelled in slyly misleading the nation time and again, as he did most stunningly on the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement. In his memoirs, A Prattler’s Tale, economist Ashok Mitra is ruthlessly honest in his description of Mr Singh: “His timidity is the product of his civil servant’s mind, which many mistake as humility.” He also recounts an incident from his days as a member of the Rajya Sabha when Mr Singh was the Union Finance Minister. At a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Finance, Mr Mitra wanted the Government to supply copies of an RBI report listing the identities of individuals and corporates who owed more than a crore of rupees in unpaid bank loans adding up to more than Rs 50,000 crore. “The Finance Minister (Mr Singh) had a quick consultation with the Finance Secretary, who was sitting next to him, and agreed to place copies of the report before the members (of the committee)... Then the fun started. Days went by, then weeks, followed by a full month, but we did not receive copies of the report. I wrote to the Finance Minister but there was no reply from him. I sent him another letter... the silence was unbroken. At the next meeting of the committee, I hit the roof. Manmohan, however, was unfazed. He feigned surprise, ‘What, did I really make such a promise? I do not remember. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding’.” Mr Mitra has other stories to tell about our economist Prime Minister, but since he hasn’t committed them to paper, I shan’t either. But Mr Singh’s proclivity to mislead others is not the only trait that raises discomfiting questions about India’s ‘accidental Prime Minister’. Nor should we needlessly cavil about his fake humility. What is relevant is his, to quote Mr Mitra, “lamb-like devotion” to the Nehru-Gandhi family, his “worshipful frame of mind”. It is this which prompts him to behave in the most craven manner, heaping treacly praise on the person who wields the authority of the office he holds, and which sets him apart from his senior colleagues like Mr Pranab Mukherjee. “Obviously the decision (to field Tytler and Kumar as candidates for the Lok Sabha election from Delhi constituencies) was reversed. It shows the Congress party’s sensitivity towards the Sikh community and for this you should compliment the Congress party,” he told members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps during his Friday’s interaction. Everybody knows that the decision was reversed by the Congress president. So the praise he solicits is not for the party but its president. As for ‘sensitivity towards the Sikh community’, had Mr Singh’s assertion been true, he would not have allowed the CBI to do something so reprehensible. But that would have required courage and integrity.

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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-is-indias-regent-pm-angry/446034/ Of late, our soft-spoken Prime Minister has begun using harsh language—not about the enemies of the nation but about the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. And it’s not just him, his leader too is doing that. Sonia Gandhi does not like Dr Manmohan Singh being called a “weak” Prime Minister. At an election rally last week, she angrily declared that BJP leader L.K. Advani’s description of Dr Singh as a “weak” PM amounts to showing disrespect to the nation. It is baffling how a critical assessment of Dr Singh’s performance as PM can invite this grave charge. A few days later, Dr Singh himself termed Advani’s criticism as “abusive”. I wonder if Dr Singh really doesn’t know the difference between criticism and abuse. Either he thinks any criticism of him is necessarily an insult or he has deliberately used a harsher word in the hope of winning public sympathy. US Dollar Crosses Rs. 50 Unmatched Exchange Rates, Wont even Remit2India.com/Free Calls to India Only 6.9¢ CDN a minute. Try it now! www.trueroots.ca Ludhiana india Save a dime with OneTime www.OneTime.com/Ludh Ads by Google Both Advani’s criticism of the PM and the latter’s diatribe against Advani need to be dissected. Dr Singh’s partymen and supporters may think he is a strong PM. They are entitled to their judgement, just as his critics are entitled to theirs. The only way this can be debated meaningfully is by foregrounding the debate against the PM’s actual performance in the last five years. Take, for example, the most recent episode of the Congress Party having been shamed into withdrawing Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar as its candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in New Delhi. The PM says he was neither informed nor consulted in the matter of the CBI’s clean chit to Tytler for his alleged involvement in the carnage of Sikhs in 1984. Mr Prime Minister, the CBI functions directly under you. Were you similarly kept in the dark when the CBI allowed Ottavio Quattrocchi to go scot-free with the Bofors booty? Let’s come back to Tytler, who was a minister in the UPA government. After the Nanavati Commission indicted him in 2005, Dr Singh’s position became so untenable in the face of the combined Opposition’s demand for the tainted minister’s dismissal that the PM not only conceded the demand but also had to apologise in Parliament for the 1984 riots—the first Congress PM to do so after 21 long years. If Dr Singh was a strong PM, did he put his foot down when the Congress president chose to give Tytler the Congress ticket? Or was he again not “informed and consulted”? After the CBI gave a clean chit to Tytler, did he seek an explanation from the CBI director? Why did he wait for journalist Jarnail Singh to force the Congress president to resort to a belated act of damage control? For Dr Singh to congratulate his party for being “sensitive to the sentiments of Sikhs”, and further to say “better late than never”, smacks of disingenuousness. One expects a strong PM to be both principled and decisive. Has Dr Singh displayed either of the two qualities in the matter of massive influx of Bangladeshi infiltrators into Assam, which has grave implications for India’s security and unity? He has been a Rajya Sabha member from Assam for the past 18 years. Hence, both as MP and PM, he is duty bound to pay heed to the Supreme Court’s warning in 2005 that unchecked infiltration of millions of Bangladeshis constitutes “external aggression”. The Court had directed the government to take “effective action” to save Assam. Dr Singh’s government took no action whatsoever. Indeed, when Sriprakash Jaiswal, MoS (Home), told the Rajya Sabha in July 2004 that there were 1.2 crore illegal Bangladeshi migrants living in 17 Indian states, Dr Singh publicly questioned the authenticity of the information provided by his own minister. The matter is not unrelated to the unabated internal subversion in Assam. After all, the state has witnessed over 30 terrorist acts in the past five years by Bangladesh-based and ISI-supported terrorist groups. Yet, there is not a word about infiltration from Bangladesh in the Congress manifesto, which Dr Singh himself released, along with Sonia Gandhi, a fortnight ago. Is it the sign of a strong PM to be silent on such a vital issue? And is he a strong PM who does not pull up his ministerial colleague for demanding Indian citizenship to all illegal Bangladeshi migrants? Who has not taken action against a single corrupt minister in his government? Who kept mum when his party’s manifesto chose not to mention the word ‘corruption’ even once? One last question. What kind of prime ministerial candidate is Dr Singh who has not presented himself as a candidate in the Lok Sabha elections? It is amusing that he has invoked the name of Indira Gandhi, who too was a Rajya Sabha member for some time after becoming PM. But she soon fought a Lok Sabha election and won. Technically, even a Rajya Sabha member can become PM. But in the scheme of parliamentary democracy that our Constitution has drawn up, the Lok Sabha has superior powers. Moreover, the Prime Minister of India is not a CEO reporting to his chairperson. He is the country’s highest political leader, whose executive power derives from the political authority vested by the people. Dr Singh had no direct contact with the masses when he was a bureaucrat. What is not justifiable is the fact that even after becoming PM, he never tried to establish a rapport with the masses. In the Congress scheme of things, Dr Singh is nothing more than a stopgap arrangement in the dynastic succession, a modern-day regent. In ancient and medieval times, whenever the simhaasan fell vacant, and the yuvraj was too young and inexperienced to occupy it, a trusted aide of the royal family used to be made the temporary ruler, who would relinquish the throne as soon as the prince came of age. The only difference between then and now is that a prince in the past used to be placed under the tutelage of a regent when he was 10 or 20 years of age. Rahul Gandhi is 38 and still remains inexperienced. So much for projecting him as the “Hope of Young India”. And so much for Dr Singh as a strong PM.