The blame was decidedly not Singh’s. He headed a coalition which Gandhi had cobbled together. The post of the prime minister was assigned to him; he didn’t win it on his own. He was responsible for governance. Sonia oversaw the politics of the coalition. It was mostly ministers belonging to the coalition partners of Congress who were accused of malfeasance. Sonia should have asked the coalition partners to shape up or ship out — or face a midterm poll.
Sonia did not exercise these options because of her political compulsions. She knew Congress wasn’t in fine fettle to fight the elections on its own and that the party was dependent on its partners in the coalition to be counted as a serious contender to power. Sonia did not think it was in the interest of Congress to eject them from the government. She allowed the interest of the party to supersede over that of governance.
