By INDER MALHOTRA
IT may seem trite but the first point to be made about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s press conference is that it should cease to be the rarity that it has been.

The good doctor should meet the media often, if only because he has a vision–about both the high rate of growth on the one hand, and promoting peaceful and friendly relations with neighbours, especially Pakistan, on the other–which must be articulated to garner the much-needed public support. If he does not do so, no one else would. For, the country is now eons away from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, and even the pre-Emergency days of Indira Gandhi, when every major policy or issue used to be discussed threadbare at every forum of the Congress party–the working committee, the AICC, the Congress session, the Congress Parliamentary Party–and, above all, in Parliament.
Now Parliament has been reduced to an arena for shouting matches, not reasoned debate. As for the Congress the less said the better. At no Congress forum is any serious policy issue discussed, except at closed-door meetings of the Congress Core Group, and that, too, occasionally. The tenor of many questions at the press conference and the institutional silence of the Congress party, the core of the ruling coalition, underscore the scepticism about the Pakistan policy, especially in the context of what had happened after Sharm el-Sheikh. (Incidentally, Dr Singh is factually wrong when he says Pakistan is our “largest neighbour”; that distinction belongs to China.) And though this did not find expression at the press meet there is widespread feeling in the country that while the high rate of growth is laudable, the plight of the poor is worsening and their numbers are on the increase. Shouldn’t these concerns be addressed? 
Balance of Power
To put the problem in perspective let me briefly revert to the era of Nehru, a leader of titanic stature. Even he faced strong opposition within his party, then overwhelmingly dominant on the Indian political scene. He had to put in their place two Congress presidents, Acharya Kriplani and Purushottam Das Tandon. Up to 1950, there were major differences between him and his deputy (and only near-equal), Sardar Patel. The republic’s first president, Rajendra Prasad, was constantly at odds with him. Nehru dealt with them entirely democratically, and won his point by mobilising party and public opinion. Ironically, the only Congress president who overruled him once in 1959 was his daughter. The issue was dismissal of Kerala’s first Communist ministry. Backed by the Congress rightwing, Indira Gandhi told her father to overcome his qualms.
Of course, Dr Singh is no Nehru. Since 2004 the respective positions of Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi and him have been crystal clear. Not only have the two accepted the situation willingly and gracefully, but also the Congress and the country have no problem with it. However, Dr Singh is the Prime Minister of India, with Ms Sonia Gandhi’s full support, and enjoying high countrywide respect. He must act accordingly.
In this context it is welcome that, in answer to questions that were sometimes loaded and sometimes leading, the Prime Minister clarified that there was “no distrust or mistrust” between him and Ms Sonia Gandhi; that she was the Congress president and he a Congressman; that he met her every week and valued her ‘advice and guidance’; that the government and the party were working in sync, and the party had in “no way weakened him”. It is only fair add that all doubts and misgivings underlying the questions on the subject were based on endless talk in political Delhi that is virtually a vast whispering gallery.
Sadly, some of the questions asked were fatuous. For instance, someone chose to inquire whether he valued Ms Gandhi’s advice “more or that of his wife”.   Good humouredly he replied that the two advised him on different subjects. By the same token, some of Dr Singh’s replies to pertinent questions were either evasive or anodyne or too terse. For example, the forecast that food prices would come down by December should have been elaborated with hard evidence. Moreover, with due respect, one must say that there are few buyers his that Mayawati and the two Yadav stalwarts, Mr Mulayam Singh and Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav helped the UPA defeat the cut motion without any quid pro quo.
No Ban on Naxals
It was unrealistic to expect startlingly new announcements at the press conference but some of the nuances in the Prime Minister’s responses to crucial questions are significant and merit attention. His declaration that since the task assigned to him was incomplete there was no question of his retirement must be read together with his answer to the question about Mr Rahul Gandhi’s future. He began by saying that the Gandhi scion was “fully qualified” to be a cabinet minister, added that he had been saying for long that younger people should “take over”, and whenever the Congress party “made that judgment”, he would be “very happy to make place” for whoever it chose.
Arguably the most important part of press conference was when he answered questions about Mr A Raja, Union minister for telecommunications belonging to the DMK, accused of causing the country a loss of whopping Rs 60,000 crore as part of the 2G Spectrum scam. To be sure, the Prime Minister did repeat Mr Raja’s self-defence stressing that his actions merely followed the established policy. But conspicuously, Dr Singh did not give the telecommunications minister a clean chit. 
This is reassuring in the context of reports, contradicted by no one, that during his last visit to Delhi the DMK patriarch and Tamil Nadu CM, Mr M Karunanidhi, had made it clear to all concerned that there was no question of Mr Raja either resigning or being sent out. Shockingly, Mr Karunanidhi backed the impugned minister’s claim that he was being targeted because he was a Dalit. However, after Dr Singh’s statement the only danger to guard against is that the inquiry doesn’t last as long as did the labours of the Liberhan Commission.
Dr Singh’s refusal to ban organisations supporting the cause of the Naxalites as long as they did not take to violence will be welcomed by the liberal sections of Indian society. But his appeal to the Naxal-afflicted states to act in cooperation with the Centre is no substitute for a comprehensive national policy to take on the killer gangs of the Maoists and also address the basic causes of the problem. Finally, there is something touching about the PMs realisation that a resumption of partnership with the Left Front is not possible and his indirect plea to former allies as “like-minded” people to support his government.