The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

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In 2004 Sanjaya Baru left a successful career as chief editor of the Financial Express to join Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as his media adviser in UPA 1. Singh offered him the job with the words, Sitting here, I know I will be isolated from the outside world. I want you to be my eyes and ears. Tell me what you think I should know, without fear or favour.

The Accidental Prime Minister is Barus account of what it was like to manage public opinion for Singh while giving us a riveting look at Indian politics as it happened behind the scenes. As Singhs spin doctor and trusted aide for four years, Baru observed up close Singhs often troubled relations with his ministers, his cautious equation with Sonia Gandhi and how he handled the big crises from managing the Left to pushing through the nuclear deal. In this book he tells all and draws for the first time a revelatory picture of what it was like for Singh to work in a government that had two centers of power.

Insightful, acute and packed with political gossip, The Accidental Prime Minister is one of the great insider accounts of Indian political life and a superb portrait of the Manmohan Singh era.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sanjaya Baru

Sanjaya Baru is one of India's highly regarded economic commentators. Presently, Media Advisor and Spokesperson to the Prime Minister of India, Baru was Chief Editor of The Financial Express and Associate Editor of The Economic Times and The Times of India. He was Professor, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, and a Member of India's National Security Advisory Board. He is on the Governing Board of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, was a consultant to UNDP and was a J. Watamull Fellow at the East-West Centre, Hawaii. He is the author of The Political Economy of Indian Sugar and has published extensively on economic and strategic policy in India and abroad.