Baru to rejoin new UPA govt

Sanjaya Baru, former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will return to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) from August 1 in the second innings of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. However, this time he will play a different role in the PMO.

According to Congress sources, Baru is expected to head the proposed ‘Delivery Monitoring Unit’ in the PMO. He will also be roped in to fine-tune PM’s speeches. As the media advisor, Baru had done this during his earlier stint with Manmohan Singh.

Last year, Baru had resigned from the government job and joined as a faculty in a Singapore-based university. But this time he will not be appointed as media advisor — a post currently held by former principal information officer Deepak Sandhu.

The PM wants to set up the Delivery Monitoring Unit “to monitor flagship programmes and iconic projects and report on their status publicly”. According to PMO sources, Baru had a meeting with the prime minister this week after he came back from Singapore.

Another top aide of the PM during the first UPA government, Pulok Chatterjee, is also in town. He too, met the PM raising speculation about his return to the PMO.

But bureaucrats close to Singh claimed Chatterjee might not return anytime soon. Chatterjee had joined the World Bank in February, ahead of the recent general elections.