In Wednesday's interaction with senior journalists, as one editor asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 'why are you holding this press conference?,' -- which on the face of it may seem to be a strange question -- it reflected the growing sense that the prime minister had not recovered any lost ground by the exercise.
Nor could it be considered a good public relations exercise, either for Dr Singh himself or his government.
Breaking his long silence on the scams and problems plaguing the United Progressive Alliance government, the prime minister held the press interaction obviously to clear the air, respond to public concerns and generally let the nation know his stand on various issues.
Now that the budget session of the parliament is round the corner, the UPA II government is further coming under the cloud of suspicion with no sign of the bad weather letting up.
The prime minister, who appeared ill at ease, reflected helplessness and a sense of 'not being in control of things' when he blamed coalition politics for the scams in the government, and said that, "You have to make compromises in coalition politics".
He said that the decision to appoint A Raja as a minister was not made by him but by the leader of the alliance partner Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party.
He said he was receiving complaints about Raja from all sides 'but was not in a position to make up mind on whether there was something seriously wrong with his functioning.'
But the prime minister was clear that despite the problems and the coalition compulsions and the scams and scandals which had hit his government, he had 'never felt like resigning.'
"I have a job to do. The Congress has been elected as the leader of the UPA government and there is still a lot of unfinished business to do. I will stay the course," he said.
He also said he would like to complete his term and it was too early to say about whether he would be the leader for the next general election.
The prime minister said he may have made some mistakes, "but I am not as big a culprit as is being made out".
The prime minister gave the impression that he feels he has run a highly competent government and wanted a pat on the back for it, which he was not getting.
"If 7 out of 10 are correct, the shareholders of a company would have said it's a job well done," he said. But obviously Dr Singh has not been getting this kind of appreciation for which he feels cheated.
The prime minister had prepared and written response on the Indian Space Research Organisation-Devas deal and in response to a question on it, he read out the parts claiming that there was no effort to dilute the decisions of the department of space and tried to explain why the deal had not yet been annulled.
Giving himself a clean chit, he said he had not met anyone himself in the deal and there was no backroom talks by his officials as far as the deal was concerned.
Asking the media not to focus only on negative issues, the prime minister said 'facts are sacred and should not be distorted.' The attempt was obviously to blame the media which had been exposing many of the scams in his government.
But the underlying message of compromise and helplessness from the leader of a great democracy like India has not gone down well, say political analysts on the prime minister's performance before the television cameras.
While the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and left have come down hard on the prime minister, even an ally like the Nationalist Congress Party has reacted to the prime minister not appreciating his criticism of coalitions and allies.
Within the congress, leaders have noted the omission of any reference to party chief Sonia Gandhi during his interaction with the media and it is interesting that there was no question on the relationship between the big two in the Congress party or on Rahul Gandhi.
A senior leader said the prime minister has neither helped his cause nor that of the party and government by holding the press conference, which did nothing to clear the air but showed the prime minister as a man not fully in control of the situation but unwilling to let go of his chair.
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