Not quite impeccable integrity.

Our PM's image that of man of impeccable integrity and a very honest man has amazingly not changed despite scam after scam under his watch. Forget about the fact for a moment that the post of PM is not just a ceremonial position where we put up somebody who we think is honest but doesn't do anything about all the muck going around him, remember he himself has not investigated or gone after any of the corrupt man in his government or even outside his government. On every step he has been forced to act by the constant media pressure for days and then also he has acted reluctantly and doing only enough to release the pressure for a while. Despite so much talk of lack of governance or corruption everywhere he either seems incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. Forget about doing anything, he rarely even gives interviews or speeches to try to defend himself or his government despite a very friendly media who astonishingly still believe in him.

Recent events have discredited even the last remaining virtue of Mr. Singh, his personal honesty and integrity. The first is the appointment a man - who is himself tainted and alleged to be involved in a scam - for the post of CVC, the country's premier vigilance body. Now many questions come to mind. First of all, one thing is clear Manmonhan Singh cannot feign ignorance. There are enough evidence, least of all the clear dissent from Ms. Sushma Swaraj, which makes it pretty clear that PM was aware of the allegations against Mr. Thomas. Now despite knowing all the charges against him why he was still pushing for him to be appointed head of CVC is hard to understand. I mean surely we haven't run out of honest capable men who can be made head of the CVC. Here again only when Supreme Court intervened and asked to sack Mr. Thomas only then PM was forced to act. Before that despite several protests from opposition and media reports he though he would get away with it. These are not the behaviors of a honest man. At best we can say he is weak and doesn't have any say in the government and at worst he deliberately allows corruption just to stay in power.

One other example again that showed PM's lack of honesty and integrity is his response to the wikileaks, which showed his party men tried to buy votes with money. Now any intelligent man could see that there is no reason why a US diplomat writing back to his country would lie and that too about having shown cash to himself personally. If it was just here-say and he had only heard that money was exchanged for votes we could say may be he had wrong information or that it was just a rumor, but here he was shown the money himself, which leaves no doubt in my mind at least that money was offered to try to buy votes. Now as an intelligent man PM surely knows that the wikileaks are authentic, but still rather than coming hard on his party members or promising to the nation that he will catch whoever that indulged in such behavior he tried to deny the whole thing saying the leaks are not verified or giving excuses trying to deny the whole thing.

This clearly does not sound like the behavior of a honest man with impeccable integrity. Time we come hard on him and replace him at least as a PM.