I am an unabashed admirer of Finance Minister P Chidambaram. I rate him a rare breed of politician with a clear thinking, erudition and hardworking individual. I even feel and have written that he deserves to be the Prime Minister of India. He is the real reform man. His big bang budget under United front government opened up reforms in financial sector. It is to his credit that direct tax collections have far exceeded indirect tax collection and tax compliance improved. He successfully implemented service tax recommended by Raja Chelliah committee. He was able to mop up 30000 crores under a Voluntary disclosure of income scheme. Some economists blame him for fiscal profligacy because he implemented the 4^th pay commission recommendation even though the Government did not have the guts to streamline administration as recommended by Ratnavel Pandian who suggested rationalizing working hours, reducing holidays etc.

PC was shifted out of Finance ministry to lord over MHA after the Mumbai siege when Shivraj  Patil came a cropper. After initial reluctance he proved to be Independent India’s best Home Minister ever- closer to Sardar Patel. When the UPA decided to have him back at North block his chosen successor –Sushil Kumar Shinde was no match for him and in fact by doing so, UPA did a gross injustice to the efforts of PC. Be it as it may, PC got in to serious work to get back economy on the wheels.

The one constant irritant in his personality is that he lacks the ability to play as a team and often rubs colleagues in the wrong shoulder. Digvijay Singh used to call him arrogant. The aura of a sincere hardworking minister comes to nothing when he tries to roughshod over others. This time, he has played in to the game of the industry when he suggested a National Investment Board to be headed by the PM for speedy clearance of projects with costs exceeding 1000 crores. The intentions could be fine but this smacks of authoritarianism evoking objections from MoF and environments Ms. Jayanthi Natarajan and promotes an unnecessary turf war. This could be MMS way of testing waters because MMS on previous occasions have derided meaningful objections from Jairam Ramesh. At an appropriate moment, MMS shunted him out of the environment ministry.

PC should not fall in to a trap laid by the PM who would like to see him indispensable and would like the baton to pass from him to a Nehru Gandhi scion rather than to people like PC.