Was Dr. Manmohan Singh a victim of a Gandhi family drama?

I do not think Dr. Manmohan Singh was a victim by any means. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have become PM ever by any means, if he had to battle for the chair or battle for the leadership position himself. He was selected PM not elected. He knew his limitations and accepted to become PM with all the constraints, he knew that he was never going to have the full power of PM. He accepted the chair with complete knowledge of his position and the condition under which he had to work. So I don’t think he ever felt victimized or he could ever complain. In fact, possibly he was comfortable with the arrangement, otherwise, he would have refused to accept the 2nd term. Dr. Manmohan Singh has not been a regular politician or power center to feel deprived.

It was in knowledge of everybody that Sonia was the power center of the UPA government and Dr. Manmohan Singh was the face of the government. In fact, Indian voters were also not against the arrangement. The proof is that Congress won a bigger number of seats in 2009, winning 206 seats, 61 more than in 2004. The nation voted UPA to power despite the presence of strong leader like Advani Ji. People exercised their choice. It was no TINA ( There Is No Alternative). People had choices available, but they preferred Dr. Manmohan Singh to continue to remain PM. The nation has been under coalition government since 1989 after the fall of the Rajiv Gandhi government. As such people were Ok with coalition government and UPA has been able to give a stable government for ten years. I believe lot of credit goes to Dr. Manmohan Singh for winning back to back two terms. Even strong politicians like PVN Rao and Vajpayee Ji couldn’t manage to win two terms. People would remember that strong politicians like Morarji Desai, V P Singh, Chandra Sekhar, I K Gujral, and Deve Gowda couldn't retain power or give a stable government. In that sense, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s credibility or achievement was not mean. I know there have been constant efforts to pull down Dr. Manmohan Singh’s image and malign his government.

Dr. Manmohan Singh understood that the nation desperately needed a stable government for economic development and he was the only acceptable face for the UPA partners. MMS gave his best so far as the economy is concerned even though he had limited say. Dr. Manmohan Singh spoke very less, but he was a man of action. His government inflicted five times more casualties to militants in Kashmir than that under the Modi government. In the economic domain, he retained his complete say and steered the economy quite well despite the global recession. Dr. Manmohan Singh didn’t let a single Indian bank suffer when in the US alone 468 banks went out of business. He didn’t let employment figures go down. To a large extent, he held the fuel price under control despite crude oil prices being mostly around the 120–140 dollar bracket. The debt of the central government was also kept under control. Whereas under the Modi government our public debt has gone up from 50 lakh crores to 154 lakh crores, a threefold increase. And this is in spite of huge increases in taxation and huge fall in crude oil prices in the international market. The crude oil prices went as low as US $ 20 in January 2020. But even then our external debt has increased by over US $ 200 billion. Whereas Modi government has been ruling with full majority and he himself holds absolute power in the government as well as in the party. Dr. Manmohan Singh never had to go for wholesale sell of public assets or to take RBI reserve. Its very difficult to impress the common voters with the state of the economy. But people could see the effect of economic growth. Dr. Manmohan Singh was not blowing his own trumpet. There was no round-the-clock publicity of the government like it happens today. But even then UPA won with bigger numbers.

If Dr. Manmohan Singh had the kind of power Modi Ji enjoys, possibly India would have been in a different league. Its not important how much power you have. Its important what you do with your power. MMS did much better with his limited power.