Who Should Decide The Next Prime-Minister – People Or Digvijay Sing?

Remember the time of emergency and the then spineless Congress president named D.K.Barooah, who showed some unprecedented act of bootlicking when he said – Indira is Bharat and Bharat is Indira? Well many might not be remembering that path breaking dialogue delivery which wrote yet another fine chapter in the history of bootlicking. That was a period and now we are in a different era. Thankfully the days of weak media and almost classified nature of governance are long gone and now we have a vibrant governance framework where each stake holder has a fair say on the day-to-day activities with transparency in everything that the present day government does. In the present scenario where watchdogs are all around to pounce on any mistake, we always were assured, such naked display of bootlicking abilities would be promptly kept under the wrap, until came a certain Digvijaya Sing to prove all of us wrong. Even though he not necessarily replaced Indira to Rahul of Mr.Barooch’s line in entirety; he almost did that when he said, Rahul is now more than capable and eligible to become the Prime-Minister. This rhetoric from the person with a serious case of foot-in-the-mouth disease left a lot of people, including the presently installed Prime-Minister with a very bad taste. The damage control team of Congress was pressed into service to salvage the lost grounds so much so that the next morning Digvijay Sing got up from his bed and thought to take a complete ‘U’ from his earlier utterances. Thankfully the media didn’t take this latest Diggy Raja flick with seriousness and let the embarrassing situation for the ruling party to settle down a little. However the latest gimmicks of Diggy Raja raised a fundamental question on the level of confidence and support that the Prime-Minister enjoys among his colleagues and if he is actually governing the nation with some authority or just there occupying the chair as a stopgap arrangement till the prince is ready?

Even though there are contrasting opinions on the above questions, at the face value, our Prime-Minister doesn’t seem to have much clout among his own. The regular emergence Rahul Gandhi’s name every now-and-then by one of his own party members or the other doesn’t give that all-is-well look; more so when he is yet to complete even half of his second term. The tag of a weak Prime-Minister that Manmohan Sing seems to be embedded with by the opposition from the day he took oath for the first time is only getting strengthened. The perpetual silence that our Prime-Minister loves to continue with is not doing any help to the situation either. With emerging issues of inflation, corruption amounting to unheard of volume, his own cabinet ministers getting arrested left-right-and-center on corruption charges; the job of Manmohan Sing is well cut out and to have such distractions from his own party men amidst this chaos is the last thing what he can appreciate. Leaving aside the internal party politics, in a larger frame the whole Rahul Gandhi-future-PM bandwagon is entirely distasteful and Congress as a party can very well avoid embarrassing itself and their present Prime-Minister on whose clean image they are relying heavily to bail them out once again from the uncountable number of corruption charges they are neck deep in. In the process to prove who the bigger bootlicker is, the cadres of Congress are insulting their own PM, the populace who have voted them to power and last but most important the very democracy they say, they adhere to the hilt.

What Diggy Raja wanted to convey when he said Rahul is now a mature politician and qualified enough to take up the top job is best known to him only. When an elected government is yet to even complete half of its term, such nuances doesn’t make any sense. This might inculcate a sense of fear among a section of Congress voters who thought they have voted to see Manmohan Sing at the top but being told in the middle that it is not entirely correct. Being a democracy Congress can any day ask Dr.Sing to hang up is boot and make way for Rahul to honor the chair, is what seems like a very logical fear that few loyal Congress voters are harnessing. If that was not enough, Prime-Minister’s last interaction with a bunch of selected editors has further strengthened the fear than otherwise. During his chat with the editors, Dr.Sing didn’t hesitate to announce his eagerness to step aside the day his party asks him to do so in order to allow a younger person to lead. This is scary when one gets a feeling that the Prime-Minister of the nation is not sure of what he is doing and what he should do. Even in important matters like stepping down, he is not using his own wisdom but merely waiting for someone else’s orders. Could this very admission of ‘follow-the-orders’ syndrome exhibits anything other than rapidly weakening grip of the Prime-Minister on his government and his cabinet?

As a citizen of this nation I am scared a little at the prospect of Dr.Sing leaving the chair and retiring into a political oblivion in the middle of the term in the hands of a bunch of psychopaths. If this was a family business, then it still would have been digestible but I am afraid we are talking about governing a nation; not some family run business house. It is the people who should decide whom they want as their next Prime-Minister, not a party or its high-commands or its bootlickers. It is a fact that people have not voted Dr.Sing ever as he never stood for election but yet people have voted Congress to power looking at the clean and mature image of Manmohan Sing. People didn’t vote Congress because they wanted Rahul Gandhi to become the Prime-Minister halfway through. This could also be a case of betrayal to many loyal voters who not necessarily are bootlickers and have voted for Dr.Sing not Congress party. There could be another set of voters who are not traditionally Congress voters but voted them only because of Dr.Sing was projected as the Prime-Ministerial candidate. Those people might feel cheated with even the very idea that a whole lot of Gandhi family bootlickers garnering.

Rather being self-judgmental about Rahul Gandhi’s caliber to become the Prime-Minister of the nation, it better should be left for the populace to decide. Congress rather resorting to rhetoric via their enormous number of bootlickers should instead project Rahul Gandhi as their Prime-Ministerial candidate for the next general election and allow the voters to take it from there. After all it is the post of the Prime-Minister that we are talking about; who is going to serve the nation and its populace; not the Congress party. Hence it should be left for the people, not the congress party or few of its psychopaths to decide whom they show their trust as a leader and whom they want to serve them. If Rahul Gandhi passes that litmus test then I don’t see a reason why shouldn’t he be made the next Prime-Minister. Till then throwing tantrums should strictly be avoided or at least a certain Digvijay Sing shouldn’t be allowed to show his uncanny buttering skills in open and should be stopped from analyzing and authorize someone’s potential and caliber when his own are greatly questionable to begin with.