Manmohan Singh couldn`t understand coalition politics: Sriprakash Jaiswal

Zee Media Bureau/Deepak Nagpal

New Delhi: In comments that reflect badly on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s political acumen, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Tuesday said that the PM could not understand coalition politics. Speaking to a news channel, Jaiswal said Dr Singh was suffering the consequences of the same now. The comments came in the wake of two recent books which have shown the PM in bad light. The first book, by Sanjaya Baru - Dr Singh`s media advisor from 2004-09 – alleged that the PM had surrendered his decision-making authority to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, giving weight to claims that the UPA chairperson was the super PM. The second book, by PC Parakh – former coal secretary – said the PM failed to prevent the coal blocks allocation scam as well as his ministers from having a free run. The claims by the two authors as well as Jaiswal`s remarks have cast a shadow over the consecutive tenures of the economist PM, who has said that he will not be in the running for a third term if the UPA comes back to power. Opinion surveys have shown the Congress and the UPA doing poorly in the Lok Sabha elections 2014.