The O in PMO is a letter, not a number

Many years ago, the captain of India's cricket team walked out of a selection meeting because the board refused to give him a couple of players he wanted.

“I can't win if you foist these non-performers on me,” he said. “Never mind,” said the selection committee. “Matches are not always won by our good performance. Much depends on their bad fielding also.”

The captain should have quit because his authority had been severely undermined by the Board. But he didn't. And India lost the series.

In a few days from now, the Prime Minister is expected to do what he should have done long ago: Discard the deadwood from his council of ministers and induct the good wood into it. He is also expected to re-allocate the portfolios.

The exercise is supposed to be and, is usually, conducted from a position of prime ministerial strength, not merely to make a government more effective but also to punish the unfaithful and reward the loyal. But, above all, it is meant to show the party and, therefore the country, who the boss is.

Throughout his career, Dr Singh has always wanted to be boss and as a boss always made it be known he is the boss.

As Prime Minister, who is the ultimate boss, he has never claimed to be the boss; nor has his party allowed him to do so.

So when the aging minister, Mr Murli Deora, wants to resign from the government, he lets it be known that he has informed the party, not the prime minister.

A tragedy, Sirjee

But that is not the true measure of this farce; the problem is that it is a tragedy as well, and its true measure is the way in which the PM takes this insult: Quietly.

That makes it the true measure of the tragedy because it is not only Dr Singh's; it is India's as well because it is not the Prime Minister alone who stands devalued but his office as well. After all, the Prime Minister may see himself as belonging to the party but how can he forget that his office belongs to the country. Prime Ministers can be zeros but the O in the PMO is a letter, not a number.

His actions (or non-action, as many allege) are not wrong. On the contrary, they are perfectly rational. But they are so in one, and only one, context: Survival. In every other respect, they are completely wrong.

Action and non-action may have been dignified by Atal Bihari Vajpayee with the silly term ‘coalition dharma' but dharma is about duty, not expediency. It is owed not just to the party but to the rest of us as well.

A constitutional office is not merely meant to be occupied but also has to be seen to be occupied.

But the really awful thing about India's current plight is that, much as it may like to feel superior to Pakistan, there really is no difference in this one most important of all aspects: Who really runs the show.

There, as here, it is not the Prime Minister, nor the President. It is someone else who has no place in the constitutional design of things.

No dual control, please

So what's the solution? A full and final surprise. The Congress president should be the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister should be the Congress president. In the 20th century, the Congress party never tolerated a bifurcation of political and administrative power.

Why should the 21st century be an exception?

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