In the myopia of current scandals rocking our parliament, some of us, rather, most of us, have deviated from a very important question, which might come back to haunt us. To be honest, even I had given very little thought to it until I came across an editorial recently, which talked about the legacy of our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. After reading it, the only thought that stuck was, gosh, he is 78 and in his last term. Forget the nature of his legacy, do we even have somebody to build upon the foundation of his government?
Of course, most of you would feel- What kind of a ridiculous question is this? Or, Duh, Rahul Gandhi! More on Mr. Gandhi a bit later, but which other name springs to your mind? Let me state this and prevent you from haranguing me. No, neither Pranab Mukherjee nor S.M. Krishna are potential candidates. For them, that ship has already sailed. Mukherjee is in the swan song of his illustrated career, while Krishna was brought back from political exile when he was reinstated as a cabinet minister post a gubernatorial term. Moreover, I hope the AICC would save India the blushes by not nominating Krishna to the elite post. What if he reads out Pakistan's speech at the next UN assembly session!
Coming to the honorable members of the opposition (again, I am going with a best case scenario favoring the 'Hindu' BJP), the options narrow down to...? Narendra Modi, for all his good work as the Gujarat CM, is a political red-flag for even the most ardent of NDA partners. Well, yeah, Sushma Swaraj is a good administrator, and yes, Rajnath Singh has a mass-appeal in the Hindi belt (which, by the way, did not prevent a rout of the BJP in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections). Who else? Yashwant Sinha-Too leanred, Jaswant Singh- Too opiniated, Arun Jaitley- Not a member of the Lok Sabha. None of them have any significant mass appeal, like Atal Behari Vajpayee had.
If you consider for a second that the leader can be somebody outside of the BJP microcosm, the only other candidate whose name springs up is Nitish Kumar. To me, personally, Nitish would make a good PM. He has shown his savvy in the recent state elections, and moreover, he has the precarious balance of caste and agenda well ensconced. The only problem is, if you go by his term in the NDA cabinet, Kumar was unable to turn around the fortunes of the Indian railways (no mean feat to achieve by the way, but not untenable either). He would come to office with humongous expectations and a history of turnarounds, and the chances are high that he could face what President Obama is facing in the states- dwindling mass support amidst a collusion of diversionary policies. So he might very well choose to lead Bihar into the next phase of its heartwarming renaissance.
Therefore, all we end up with are limited options, the most prominent one being Rahul Gandhi. If you rate him on the 3 criterion I (and even my friend's grandfather) consider important for the post of a PM : Mass appeal, Vision, and Resilience, he does well on two but fails miserably on the third one. His vision, if it can be called a vision at all, is that the young must rise and take control of the burgeoning economic riches. Elementary my dear! Of course the young will rise, even if you don't ask them to. Going by the demographics of our population, it is inevitable. How about the less generic things: The direction of the next five-year plans, plans on job creation, revival of agriculture, education, the list keeps going on and on. He is resilient, no doubt. His decision to enter the muddy arena his father fell victim to was brave and commendable. Here, we have a huge dilemma at our hands. If he keeps on doing what he is doing right now, going around the countryside and gaining recognition among the electorate, he is losing valuable time to study and formulate his policies. A very staid example to give here would be that of the parliamentary elections in Britain or the US, where potential candidates spell out their stand on matters less frivolous (Karunanidhi, after promising free color television in the last Tamilnadu state elections, is promising free mixer-grinders this time!) and more towards the long-term future of the country. The youth would appreciate that more.
Therefore, all our major political parties are indulged in a jungle of politics right now, which amusingly, has all the leaders roaring like a goat.
That's all folks!
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