Thanks to the election results, Manmohan Singh will no longer be remembered merely as the Finance Minister who ushered in economic reforms. He’s finally found a place in history to be only the third Prime Minister to return to office for successive terms.
So, what should the technocrat-turned-politician do in his second term to ensure that he is remembered as a reformer Prime Minister. Here’s a 100-day action plan.

• Start with corporate governance at home. When it comes to choosing ministers and officials, merit should be the only criteria. Unlike his first term, when all key officials came either from Kerala or Andhra Pradesh, Singh’s second stint should see ‘meritocracy’ being practiced in South Block. That will also help ensure that alerts like the one on the 26/11 attacks are acted upon and not lost in transmission.

• Satyam should make Singh wiser. So, ministers should be firmly told that neither their election manifestos, nor the Common Minimum Programme talk of appointing party workers on public sector boards. He can himself play a small part by ensuring that 75-year old former colleagues are not part of any panels to suggest new ideas for rejuvenation of PSUs, manufacturing sector, unorganised sector, services sector, horticulture, sericulture and aquaculture, among others.

• The new finance minister needs to be told that public sector banks are not an extension of the finance ministry or their books are not linked to the Consolidated Fund of India. So, the minister’s constituency need not be the most-banked district in the country.

• It’s time that Singh’s team of reform-oriented economists understood the difference between State Bank of India and the Reserve Bank of India. If they can’t figure it out, the former Delhi School of Economics professor needs to remind them that he talked about market-based interest rates during his glorious years in North Block.

• The 100-day agenda for governance should unveil a policy on using Sonia Gandhi’s photograph in all infrastructure projects. May be, with the Congress president’s photograph adorning National Highways (a la Atal Behari Vajpayee) the new transport minister will get down to improving highways.

• Singh should be more assertive and make sure decisions are taken during cabinet meetings instead of setting up 100 ministerial panels that do not meet for the next five years. In any case, it helps to seek a report from a minister instead of waiting till he or she is close to being arrested in Dumka or somewhere else. He can draw lessons from his days at the university where he had to manage a class of 65-70 people, who were only slightly better-behaved.

• It is time that Singh conveyed to his media team that he is trying for an image makeover. So, they should stop circulating unsigned statements at global events, such as the G-20 meeting, talking about US President Barak Obama praising Singh the economist. After all, isn’t Singh the politician who, along with Rahul Gandhi, ensured a second straight term for the Congress party?