Mumbai, Mar 12: After admitting that he committed an “error of judgement” during the appointment of chief vigilance commissioner PJ Thomas, prime minister Manmohan Singh has now gone on to admit that it was an “error of judgment” on his part to have agreed to become the prime minister some seven years ago after UPA defeated NDA during the general elections, reports Mumbai newspaper DNA.
“I was doing just fine being a Rajya Sabha MP,” Singh said in a candid interview with DNA correspondent, “I had many private bills in mind to improve the economy of our country but then I was asked to head the government.”
Singh said that initially he was pretty excited about the new role even as a Congress leader (Ganga Charan Rajput, now in BSP) threatened to commit suicide over Sonia Gandhi choosing not to become the prime minister herself. But less than a week in office, the former economist and RBI governor started facing some problems.
“I was given a list of names who would be ministers in my cabinet,” Dr. Singh recalled, “I thought it was a raw data and I used a utility function to find out who among those qualified to become ministers. I got a pretty much flat curve on the graph, almost touching the X-axis where the names were plotted, with a few exceptions. But soon I realised that the exercise was not needed as that was a final list.”
“It sucked!” he added.
He recollected how the same frustratingly painful exercise was repeated in 2009 when UPA won the general elections again.
“A Raja's utility output fell in the fourth quadrant in my graph this time,” Singh showed us a crumpled piece of paper where he had drawn his utility function graph again in May 2009. “Fourth quadrant means negative output you know. Yes, agreed that it's a notional value, but being an economist, I knew that notional values had real implications.”
With no takers for his utility function and graphs that he drew, an annoyed Manmohan Singh decided to “chuck it all” and let the government run as it has been being run since independence.
“I didn't give two hoots to the appointment of CVC next time; I drew no graphs,” Singh said, explaining why he owed the responsibility earlier.
But the prime minister reiterated that despite such hardships, he never thought of quitting, something he had clarified many times earlier during interactions with journalists.
“Mushkilein itni padi mujhpe ki aasaan ho gayin (I faced so many problems that they weren't problems anymore),” the prime minister ended his interview with this shair (couplet) by Mirza Ghalib.
