A confident Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said his government was doing well on all fronts and did not seem unduly worried about Left criticism.
At a 90-minute press conference at the Vigyan Bhavan conference centre, the Prime Minister said the government was doing particularly well on economic and foreign policy fronts.
During his second major interaction with the national media after assuming power in May 2004, the PM exuded more confidence in his answers to a wide array of sharp questions than ever before.
He deftly sidestepped the inconvenient ones and even extolled the constant carping of Communist allies on economic and foreign policy issues as "pressures that perform a useful function" in a democracy" and providing an opportunity for "introspection" on the part of the government.
Manmohan Singh, in fact, made light of increasing Left parties' pressure on his government, saying "some tensions can be expected as a prelude to (coming state) elections".