Rahul Gandhi to be projected as PM candidate?
Dravida Munnetra Kazgham (DMK) President M. K. Stalin’s proposed that
Congress President Rahul Gandhi should be the opposition’s common Prime
Ministerial candidate in 2019. But there is a broad understanding among the
opposition parties that the issue of the name to lead the opposition will be
decided after the elections. There are
people who had enough of opposition unity. What they want is a stable Government
in India for another decade.
Stalin is desperate to become CM in Tamil Nadu. But Tamil Nadu elections
are due only in 2021. DMK even lost deposit in RK Nagar by elections under his
leadership. Even by elections are conducted in 20 constituencies but there no
guarantee to win enough seats. So his hope is to bring the Congress ruling at
the Centre and dissolve Tamil Nadu assembly to face fresh assembly elections.
Till BJP is ruling at the centre this is not possible. So he is trying to self-proclaim
himself as national leader. But outside Tamil Nadu he is common man. Just
because he happened to be the son of Karunanidhi he is having some advantages.
Otherwise he is having limited role to play at the national level.
To win the 2019 parliamentary election itself the general public will
expect somebody to be projected as the PM candidate. So hold a national
referendum to elect the opposition PM candidate. Include Rahul Gandhi, Mamata
Banarjee, Chandrababu Naidu, Mayawati, Akilesh Yadav and whoever is aspiring to
be a PM candidate. Ultimately you have to narrow it down to 2 or 3 persons
maximum. We cannot forget that
Sonia Gandhi had made Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister at the time she could not
be a Prime Minister. Because of her Italian origin, there was great controversy
and she simply had to step aside. Now it is left to be seen as to what will
happen in case of Rahul Gandhi.
Ultimately, the more important question is whether Indian politics of the
future will be in the hands of well-settled vote-banks such as farmers,
traders, workmen, students, artists, the disabled, the unemployed etc. in
addition to or in place of existing groups operating.
Sycophancy is quite common among Dravidian Leaders and Stalin is no
exception and DMK would like to celebrate his utterance of naming Rahul as next
PM. Media has magnified Stalin’s proposal as if it has been agreed to by all
constituents of Congress coalition. Only proper way is to decide it in the
closed meeting of coalition partners among themselves.
All State level parties very well know that Congress Party will
definitely get more seats than their party, even in worst scenario. Now all
pretend that they are very big brother in their respective states and keep the
arm close to their chest just to bargain from the grand old party, but the
voters in particular irrespective of different states will be interested either
in the National Parties or the alliance with the participation of National
Parties, as the voters have lot of past experience in which the opposition
crumbled due to power struggle even with good mandate.
So all State Parties should come together and shed their big brother
attitude for a better result, otherwise the voters will reject them if they
fail to join a National Party alliance.
On a day when the Congress party had sought to present a united
opposition at the swearing-in ceremonies of its Chief Ministers in
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, leaders from several opposition
parties distanced themselves from Dravida Munnetra Kazgham (DMK) President M.
K. Stalin’s proposal to project Congress President Rahul Gandhi as the
opposition’s common Prime Ministerial candidate in 2019. This shows how hollow
is Rahul Gandhi's candidature for PM of India.
Stalin was a bit hasty in his suggestion. At the outset he should have
confabulated with all the political leaders in the matter of choice of PM
candidate. Post elections, there will be fierce competition for the top post,
everybody staking claim. Hard to arrive at a consensus; they may even zero in
on Modi.
No comments:
Post a Comment