(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has just completed three years of its second term, with two years to go till the next general election in 2014.
The gentle, scholarly Dr Manmohan Singh, academically probably the most highly qualified leader in the world, has also become the longest serving Indian prime minister, after the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi.
You would have thought that the Indian media and impartial political observers would have lauded the modest and low key Manmohan Singh for this achievement.
But you would be wrong. There is uniform criticism of him, not just from the main Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Pary, but from others who were earlier his fervent supporters.
His personal integrity is acknowledged, though the Anna Hazare-led civil society team has questioned it, over the granting of coal mining licences to private companies, when he was in charge of the coal ministry, six years ago (the Criminal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the allegation).
He is also considered an outstanding economist, who has steered India to an annual growth rate of around nine per cent during the last eight years, the second highest of a major economy after China. However, the Indian economy is now in serious trouble, the likely projection of growth for the current year being a very disappointing 6.5 per cent.
Remember, each percentage point up represents three million more jobs. Which means that there could be eight to nine million more unemployed Indians this year.
Add to that a continuing high inflation rate of 8.5 per cent, along with the rupee plunging to an all-time low against the US dollar, and you have a very bleak scenario indeed. The huge success of the recent Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket tournament and Vishwanath Anand being crowned the world chess champion for the fifth time cannot lift the prevailing curtain of gloom.
What has gone wrong?
In 2004, when the Congress Party won a totally unexpected electoral victory over the BJP, and when the equally unexpected choice of prime minister fell on Manmohan Singh, the national mood was euphoric.
The Congress scored yet again at the next general election, riding high on good financial results. The stock market was booming and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were eagerly storming India in record numbers. India was the flavour of the time. Even the 2008 global economic crisis, which laid the US and Europe low, did not impact that much on India.
Then came the downturn, with a slew of serious corruption charges that are still in the courts: One, what became known as the "2G Spectrum" scam, two, a multi-crore housing scam relating to a Mumbai skyscraper, and three, the Commonwealth Games scam. To the embarrassment of the Congress party, in all three, senior Congress ministers, or its allies were deeply involved.
The "clean" Manmohan Singh, who could earlier do no wrong, was suddenly seen as somebody who, at best, did not know what was happening right under his nose, or, at worst, knew but did nothing about it.
His somewhat lame excuse that all this was due to the "compulsions of coalition politics" did not wash with the public. "The weakest prime minister India has ever had," was BJP leader L.K. Advani's damning verdict. And a lot of people agreed with him.
Then came the blow from the election in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh (UP). Rahul Gandhi, along with his mother, Sonia, and sister, Priyanka, campaigned furiously hard, their political prestige at stake. A good Congress showing in UP, perhaps even a majority, would pave the way for Rahul Gandhi to ease out Manmohan Singh and replace him, if not now, then in 2014, with himself as PM.
In the event, the Congress performance in UP was abysmal. Since then, Rahul Gandhi has kept a low profile and there is little talk now in Congress circles of him replacing Manmohan Singh.
An ideal situation for the BJP to exploit - a weak, helpless prime minister, corruption scandals involving the Congress, and a faltering economy. But the BJP got it all wrong. It failed to tackle corruption scandals of its own in Karnataka and, worse, is undergoing an internal struggle that is unresolved. Advani has openly criticised his own President, Nitin Gadkari. No BJP leader has emerged who can realistically take on Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi.
But as a British prime minister once said, a week is a long time in politics. Two years is much, much longer. Anything can happen till 2014, especially in a politically volatile country like India.
Rahul Singh is the former Editor of 'Reader's Digest', 'Indian Express', and 'Khaleej Times'
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