Monday, July 10 2006 12:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi : The midway mark of India's ruling alliance is only four months away but it is clear that the vagaries of coalition politics are beginning to pull down Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Manmohan Singh's aides assert he is in full control and there is no visible reason to doubt the claim. Nevertheless, analysts say that there are clear signs that all is not well with the multi-party coalition.

Two events last week exposed the vulnerability of a prime minister who, even his admirers admit, lacks mass appeal even though he makes it up with his image as one of the cleanest and cerebral political leaders.

On Thursday Manmohan Singh hurriedly put a cap on government plans to sell equity in two state-run companies after a key ally, the DMK, threatened to pull out of the government.

Around the same time, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss' seemingly personal war against India's best known cardiologist P. Venugopal led to criticism that the prime minister was keeping quiet simply because Ramadoss' party PMK was part of his government. Ramadoss' decision to dismiss the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director has been stayed by a court order.

"Manmohan Singh's strengths were his image as a reformist and a technocrat," pointed out political observer G.V.L. Narasimha Rao," he said.

"But now he appears to be extremely vulnerable. A lot of things that happened in the recent past have gone against him and a series of developments has enhanced his image as a weak Prime Minister.

"Everyone is trying to pull his own strings in the government. He seems to be a silent spectator when his ministers took their own decisions like in the case of the reservation issue and even the AIIMS issue," Rao told sources.

"He is not on his own," he said.

Mahesh Rangarajan, an eminent political analyst, agreed.

"The prime minister is being subjected to a lot of pressures and pulls by his allies and surprisingly the Congress party also does not appear to be supporting him in many of his steps," Rangarajan told sources.

The Congress itself is a divided house on more issues than one. On the emotive issue of reserving seats for backward class communities in institutions of higher education, many believed that Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh kept Manmohan Singh in the dark. While the government was trying to check rising prices of essential commodities, the Congress criticised the government. Fearing loss of popular support, the party asked the government to take immediate corrective steps. Analysts feel the Congress was trying damage control to protect its support base among the millions of poor. "This could be because of (Congress president Sonia) Gandhi's concerns about the possible erosion of support among the masses. She could be worried about party and the government losing their image," Rangarajan noted. But Rao gave another reason, "There is a systematic attempt to weaken the authority of the prime minister." True or not, the Prime Minister's Office denied Friday that Manmohan Singh was planning to quit following the U-turn on disinvestment in the wake of the DMK's threat to pull out of the government. The Congress swears that there is no attempt to weaken Manmohan Singh, who became prime minister after Gandhi refused to be in the wake of the May 2004 victory of the Congress-led coalition in the general election. Congress general secretary Tom Vadakkan argued, "The Congress plays the role of the government's eyes and ears, which are sensitive to the changing political pulse of the people. It is a complementary role to strengthen the hands of the prime minister." Vadakkan compared the Congress role to an aircraft control terminal, "Which informs the pilot about the weather changes to get out of turbulence when the plane is flying". Since May 2004, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s biggest critic has been the Left, a 62-seat block that supports the government from outside. The communists' main criticism is that the government is deviating from the common minimum programme (CMP), a mutually agreed agenda for governance. They disapprove of Manmohan Singh's economic and foreign policies that in their view violate the CMP. Other parties in the UPA have also attacked the government on various issues. But the DMK threat which led to cancellation of moves to partly offload state shares of the Neyveli Lignite Corp and the National Aluminium Co - was the most serious. The government earlier put off the sale of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) shares following communist opposition. Rangarajan warned, "We can expect more pressurising tactics from the allies and from within the Congress in the future."