This is the second time in a
fortnight when Manmohan Singh has spoken and this time, the second time, he has
created a lot of buzz through his words. Now pundits are busy interpreting what
he meant and political folks are busy endorsing, denying or critiquing what he
said.
I am not a pundit and I don’t
have any intention to be the one but our dear Manmohan, the comfortably-numb-economist-turned-poor
politician-cum-weak prime minister, pushes me again and again to write on what
he speaks, on what he does.
Manmohanji, my sincere apologies,
but as you have the right to speak selectively and be answerable to the nation
selectively, I have the right to write on you whenever my urge pushes me to
write, and writing on something that you speak that is uncharacteristic of you
or something that makes for some unlikely ‘dramatic’ stuff from an
expressionless face like you is a natural extension of that right.
So, where were we? Okay, Manmohan
Singh speaking something on Rahul Gandhi yet again, but this time, in clearer
terms. To put him in his words precisely, let’s quote him from a media report
on what he illuminated us with about Rahul Gandhi while returning from the G20 Summit
in St Petersburg.
He said: “I have always maintained that Rahul Gandhiji would be an ideal
choice for the prime minister's position after the 2014 election. I would be
very happy to work for the Congress party under the leadership of Mr Rahul
Gandhi.”
In past, on more than one
occasion, Manmohan has endorsed Rahul Gandhi’s candidature but he was never ever
so clear. In fact, in the series of ‘Rahul Gandhi’ endorsements, he endorsed even
himself for the third term, like he did in April when he said ‘he was not
ruling it in; he was not ruling it out’.
So, what made him eulogize Rahul
Gandhi in so clear terms now?
Can it by the growing realisation
that he has lost all his credibility and it is better to step aside now? But,
why then he added he would be happy to work under Rahul Gandhi? Haven’t we seen
more than enough of him?
Or alternatively,
Can it be the growing realisation
in the Congress party that it can still win the next parliamentary polls riding
on the triple factors of (1) a scattered political opposition, (2) a divided house
- Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Narenrda
Modi and (3) the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) populist electoral
measures like ‘direct cash transfer, food security and land acquisition bills’
and so, it is the time to play from the front, to put forward the Congress
scion for that elusive prime-ministerial chair that has been ditching the Nehru-Gandhi
family for over two decades now?
Or,
Is it the dawn of ‘right’ realisation
in Manmohan’s thinking that UPA is not going to win back even if counting the
return of all the populist election sops in and it is the time to settle the score
(by shifting the axis of electoral loss away from him) by clearly endorsing the
name of Rahul Gandhi so as to give some definitive push to the demand of almost
every Congress politician to project Rahul Gandhi as the prime-ministerial
nominee for the next parliamentary polls in 2014? There have been real-time
speculations on Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh differences, especially on extreme
push for the populist sops when the economy is in tatters, something that is directly
ominous for the brand Manmohan Singh; something that has played a pivotal rule
in bringing down Manmohan’s fame, obviously, in collaboration with the ‘compulsions
of the coalition politics’.
Anyway, if Manmohan’s words come
true, he will give India its yet another ‘first’ – this will be the first time in
India’s political history that an ex-prime minister would take a junior job in
his party’s future government.