Baru book smacks of fiction, allegations baseless:PMO

The PMO today hit out at Sanjaya Baru, former Media Adviser, saying his book contending that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was undermined by Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi smacks of "fiction" and is a "coloured" view and rubbished as "baseless and mischievous that its files were seen by her.
"The statement being attributed to a former Media Adviser to the Prime Minister that PMO files were seen by the Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi is completely baseless and mischievous.
It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been shown to Smt. Sonia Gandhi," the Prime Minister's Office(PMO) spokesman Pankaj Pachauri said in a statement here.

Pachauri was responding to the claims by Baru in his book 'Accidential Prime Minister - The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh' and comments to media that the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterjee would seek "instructions" from Gandhi on important PMO decisions.
Criticising Baru, the PMO statement said, "The book written by the former media adviser is an attempt to misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and to apparently exploit it for commercial gain.
The commentary smacks of fiction and coloured views of a former adviser."

The statement reiterated that "the question about comments of the former media adviser was raised by senior editors when they met the Prime Minister in October last year. His answer was "- Do not believe all he is saying".

The PMO statement came amidst strong attack by the opposition on Gandhi and the Prime Minister, using the claims by Baru.
Baru today claimed that the book is "very balanced" and also highlighted the achievements of UPA but said the media has only focussed on the criticism in it.
"I have said in my introduction that the book says both good and critical things," he said.
"More than 50 per cent of the book records the facts where he took decisions where he showed resolve...This was a PM(Manmohan) who did a lot and the book records that," he added.
Senior BJP leaders including L K Advani and Arun Jaitley attacked ruling Congress and Singh in connection with the book, saying it is a confirmation of what the world already knew that he is a "weak" PM and Gandhi had the last word in government matters.