Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: With the media increasingly stressing the need for the Prime Minister to be more communicative on critical issues facing the nation, the government, Tuesday, announced that Manmohan Singh would, from now on, interact with senior editors on a regular basis.
And, the urgency of the much needed course correction, can be gauged from the fact that the first interaction with the media has been scheduled for tomorrow, when he would be meeting editors from the print media.
The announcement comes at a time when there is widespread impression that the Prime Minister has been unusually quiet, and possibly avoiding the public glare, amid increasingly shrill accusations about non-performance and malfeasance in his administration.
As per a report, many in the Congress are convinced that the government and the Prime Minister need to be more communicative to stem the image downslide following scams like the sale of 2G spectrum and deals struck ahead of the Commonwealth Games as well as debates over the Lokpal bill.
The government's failure to communicate was a subject of animated discussion at a closed door meeting of the Congress party top brass recently, a well-placed source disclosed.
The disaffection in the party has been brewing for some time. Party insiders point out that Home Minister P Chidambaram was only airing the party's discontent when he said in a recent interview that people expected their top leader to be more communicative.
"...But yes, I acknowledge that lots of people would like the prime minister to step up to the plate, so as to say, and speak more often. But that is the style of the person," Chidambaram told a news channel when asked why Manmohan Singh did not speak on the issue of bringing the prime minister under the purview of the proposed Lokpal.
The Oxbridge-educated Prime Minister, a former professor at the Delhi School of Economics, has so far held only three nationally televised press conferences in the last seven years.
First Published: Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 18:49