Congress calls Baru an opportunist

The institution of the Prime Minister had been degraded. Sonia has kept mum even 24 hours after the revelations in the book. She should answer the charges as people want to know.

The Congress, already fighting the Lok Sabha elections with its back to the wall, has been seething over Sanjaya Baru’s claims in his book.

It is the Congress which had apparently blocked Dr Baru’s re-entry to the PMO. Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala attacked Dr Baru, describing him as an “out of job, disgruntled turncoat who is spreading canards to sell his book and gain cheap publicity". Mr Surjewala said that the Congress “decisively rejects this cheap fiction lock, stock and barrel” while also saying that Dr Baru was a “a rank opportunist.”

Union finance minister P. Chidambaram too defended the PM on Saturday, rejecting suggestions that it was Congress president Sonia Gandhi who was running UPA-II . Asked if there was ever an occasion when the Prime Minister had to go to 10, Janpath (Mrs Gandhi’s residence) for clearance, Mr Chidambaram said never in the past 10 years had the PM told him that he had to “go back and ask someone” to take decisions.

It is noteworthy that Dr Baru, who served as media adviser to the Prime Minister during UPA-I’s tenure, left just about a couple of months before the 2009 elections for an academic assignment in Singapore.

At the time, the UPA-I’s prospects at the hustings did not appear to be very bright. However, once UPA-II had assumed the reins of government at the Centre, it is widely known that there were attempts by Dr Baru to get back into the PMO with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offering him a job there. But things didn’t work out and Dr Baru found himself being offered a post with the Planning Commission instead, which he refused.

In its blistering attack on Dr Baru, the Congress also accused him of running away from his responsibilities a few months before the 2009 general elections.

On Saturday, Mr Surjewala said that by Dr Baru’s own admission, he had wanted the job of media adviser after the UPA’s repeat victory in 2009. He said, “He is now minting cheap fiction bordering on absurdity to regain lost relevance.”

Sanjaya Baru’s current proximity to a strategist of Shri Narendra Modi is well known. Timing of his allegations establish whose political agenda he is seeking to serve. — RANDEEP SURJEWALA, Congress leader