Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday reached New Delhi from New York in a combative mood.
He not only aggressively shielded his cabinet colleague P Chidambaram but also retaliated strongly by talking tough against the Bharatiya Janata Party for its constant attack on his government.
Keeping offence as his best defence, the PM chose to attack BJP directly, accusing them of being restless to get into power, trying to destablise his government and force early elections.
He dismissed perceptions of differences among his senior cabinet ministers (Mukherjee and Chidambaram) and said: “We are a cohesive government. We shall give cohesive governance. There is no room for dissensions in my cabinet.”
Standing firmly behind Chidambaram, PM made it clear he enjoyed his full support and there was no dissension in his Cabinet in the context of the finance ministry note sent by Pranab Mukherjee.
“The ministers have a different perspective. That does not amount to lacking cohesiveness. It always helps in taking decisions,” said the PM, while making clear that reported differences between Mukherjee and Chidambaram was all media speculation and nothing more.
The outburst from a normally reticent PM took BJP by surprise which retaliated immediately saying that PM should introspect and there was no way the opposition could force early elections unless the government itself commits hara kiri.
The BJP leaders said the PM was trying to deflect the tough questions with regard to corruption in his government by pushing the blame on opposition and trying to gain public sympathy by making it a political issue.
“Present situation is critical for UPA. There is crisis of credibility picked up over last one-and-a-half years. Then there is serious issue of leadership in the government. The government is unable to force decisions, there is poor crisis management and the credibility of ministers has gone down,” said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley. But the BJP too is aware of the fact that it can not force early elections as the government has sufficient numbers to complete its full term.
While acknowledging that there could be a problem of perception about his government which needed to corrected, the PM refused to accept that his government has lost people's goodwill. According to him it was more of a handiwork of the Opposition, which was getting prematurely restless to force early elections and get into power. Asking them to be patient, Singh asserted that his government will stay the course and complete its full five year term.
The PM was more sharp in his attack on Opposition.
“The issues the government is accused of indulging in such as 2G Sepctrum or something else, the Opposition thinks, should have happened before elections. They (BJP) lost the elections and till then we have had this assembly (elections). The Congress party has been successful. Therefore, I suspect there are other forces which want to destabilise our country,” Singh said.
“We have the mandate of the people to govern for five years and the Opposition should wait for two-and-a-half years. They have got some weak points of our government and think that can force elections,” PM said.
