I can’t even remember when a Prime Minister sent a message so loud and clear through an exercise that is his sole prerogative: Cabinet reshuffle.
Of course, Manmohan Singh never had the freedom: His council of ministers was a mix of diktats he got from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and coalition supremos like K Karunanidhi, Sharad Pawar and the gang. Atal Behari Vajpayee also exercised this prerogative sparingly, like when he insisted and successfully instituted Jaswant Singh as his finance minister, despite opposition from the Swadeshi lobby and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
It was largely a consultative exercise between Vajpayee, Advani, RSS chief Rajju Bhaiya and alliance partners.
The United Front Prime Ministers– Deve Gowda and IK Gujral were hardly prime ministers in that sense. The last time someone behaved like a Prime Minister was PV Narsimha Rao, who ran his minority government with a fair degree of independence and authority through a mix of cunning, corruption and real politik.
That was more than 20 years ago and for all his brahmanical guile, Narsimha Rao had to constantly watch over his shoulders and thus was not always his own master.