THE Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s remark– “I believe that the record of the first year of UPA-II is a record of reasonable achievement but I am the first person to admit that we could have done more” –sounds like covering up for opposition criticism.

The mandate of the 2009 elections was for the inclusive agenda of the UPA government that sought to give voice to all sections of the Indian people and to empower them. There is no denying the fact that the government has not succeeded in sending the right message.  The reason may be that unlike UPA-I, UPA-II did not have a common minimum programme. The most abject failure of UPA-II is implementation. The government has been so obsessed with its neo-liberal polices and with GDP growth that it has been left with little time to think of making an ideological shift toward the poor.
We ought not to forget that the first year of UPA-II was caught into the labyrinth of global recession. This has adversely affected the flow of FDI and also institutional finance to India. The government had to tread cautiously on the path of liberalisation and reforms. The government at one stage appeared to be quite vulnerable. Though the government came out unscathed, it should have devoted this time frame to undertake the task of social and economic upliftment of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, other backward classes, which unfortunately did not happen. On the contrary what was noticed was emergence of a chain of grassroots protests whether it was in Orissa or Maharashtra or Chhattisgarh. The lack of implementation of pro-poor programmes provided opportunity to Maoists to strike with vengeance. Had UPA-II, instead of reiterating its commitment to pursue neo-liberal policies, reached out to the poor, the present situation would not have surfaced.                   
Dr Singh’s comment–“There is always room for improvement and for better outcome”– may earn him sympathy for not being brash in self-praise. He could bank on the popular view arising out of that sympathy that it was too early to be judgmental on the performance of UPA-II, that one year is a short time for that. Nor was there any room for believing that he was warming the chair for Mr Rahul Gandhi: he said he was not going to retire until he had fulfilled the task given to him by the people through a second mandate. But he cannot take the mandate for granted. He needs to strengthen the pro-people policies and programmes initiated by his government since 2004, and to launch monitoring of the success rates of the flagship programmes of his government. He should do more to improve the delivery system. We need a strong economy to generate productive employment and also resources to finance our social and economic agenda. UPA-II must combat the challenges that are complex and tough. The government has appeared to be faltering on many issues, including its promises on food security, right to employment and women’s reservation. For public praise, firmness must show.