He held me back when I sought to project him during my time as his media adviser, saying, ‘I want my work to speak for me.'
Perhaps Dr Singh was nervous about projecting himself because he thought that was the undoing of P.V. Narasimha Rao".
Manmohan Sigh consciously strove not to project himself. "His problem always was that he did not want to become more popular with the media and the general public than Sonia.
Whenever a TV channel or newsmagazine conducted an opinion poll and showed that his popularity, while rising, was a few notches below that of Sonia, he would feel relieved.
‘Good,' he would say, with a mischievous smile. That defined the limit to his projection and brand-building," Baru felt.
Baru says that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose decade-old tenure at the country's helm ends next month, has shown the country "that an ordinary, honest Indian, an aam aadmi, to use the current buzzword in politics, could become prime minister through sheer hard work and professional commitment."
