When under attack, wrap yourself in the tricolour. Under fire from the opposition benches and the media for his “sellout” to Pakistan at Sharm El-Sheikh.
When under attack, wrap yourself in the tricolour. Under fire from the opposition benches and the media for his “sellout” to Pakistan at Sharm El-Sheikh, prime minister Manmohan Singh’s media managers decided to pull out all the stops to project him in nationalistic colours.
On Sunday, Singh used the launch of India’s first nuclear submarine and the 10th anniversary of the Kargil conflict to shore up his image. According to indications available from multiple sources, the prime minister’s office (PMO) altered Singh’s programmes over the past few days to ensure that his appearances on both the occasions turned into major media events.
DNA learns that initially there was no plan for the prime minister to lay a wreath on the 10th anniversary of the Kargil conflict. This is why army chief General Deepak Kapoor was away in the US, having been informed that the function would be low-key. If it was known earlier that the PM would be attending, it is highly unlikely that the army chief would have flown off to the US.
Traditionally, the UPA government has been attaching low political significance to the July 26 event, which honours the martyrs of the Kargil conflict during the BJP-led NDA government in 1999. Victory in that war gave the Atal Behari Vajpayee government a huge fillip at the general elections that followed.
A few days ahead of the July 26 event this year, the PMO conveyed Singh’s desire to lead the nation in paying homage to the martyrs of Kargil. With the PM on board, defence minister AK Antony too joined the function. Thus, for the first time in the UPA government’s tenure, the PM has personally led the Kargil homage.
Within hours of the early morning ceremony at India Gate in New Delhi, the prime minister was airborne, headed for Visakhapatanam for the launch of India’s first indigenous nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant.
Until three days before the function, it was clear that the launch of INS Arihant would be a quiet ceremony, without any media presence. The navy top brass was keen to keep it away from the media glare, and so was the rest of the defence establishment.
However, sources indicate that the PMO again intervened to ensure that the entire event was open to the media. A media contingent was flown from Delhi in a military aircraft.
Though only limited photographs and video shots were made available by the ministry of defence, the event turned out to be Sunday’s biggest media show.
The two events together ensured that the prime minister remained in the media focus on Sunday and Monday for reasons that are “nationalistic”. This comes at a time when the Congress party has decided to come to his defence after the Indo-Pak joint statement fiasco at Sharm el-Sheikh, where India and Pakistan agreed that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.” This has been a huge climbdown from India’s previous stand that bilateral dialogue cannot proceed without action against the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
According to critics, worse has been the inclusion of Pakistan’s concerns about Balochistan in the joint statement, which was like a tacit admission by India that it was brewing trouble in that restive province.
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