January 4, 1999

YASHWANT SINHA
Rolling Back

The PMO put him on a short leash after he lost grip over inflation.

After Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, the office of the finance minister acquired an aura that would have made any new incumbent look larger than life. Yashwant Sinha basked briefly in the hangover of glory, until he was overwhelmed by falling revenues, sagging markets and rebellious inflation. Rattled by the events, he'd cut subsidies today and order a roll-back tomorrow. If asked when the markets would improve, he'd hum the buzz of the '60s, his decade, "Come September". In October and thereafter, with the stock-market indices still sticky at low levels, he'd have "rolled back" his words if he could. Of all the targets that Sinha had ambitiously set, it is inflation that went particularly haywire, exemplified by the runaway rise in the price of onions which cost the BJP heavily in the November assembly polls. Sinha is currently being sidelined by the PMO but there may not be many to sing a dirge to his journey into political oblivion.

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