Assembly elections to determine
Rahul's prime ministerial ambitions
By
Amba Charan Vashishth
When Mr. Rahul Gandhi was elevated as
Vice-President of the All-India Congress Committee at Jaipur on January 20,
2013 his mother and Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi visited him at night
and warned "power is poison". In his first speech accepting the position,
Mr. Rahul said, "Last night… My
mother came to my room and she sat with me and she cried... because she
understands that power so many people seek is actually a poison.” The
only corollary to his elevation, so went the impression, was that he would be
the party's prime ministerial candidate for 2014 Lok Sabha (LS) elections. Many
a times in the past has the incumbent Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh reiterated
that he is ready to make room for Mr. Rahul the moment the Party wants.
Simultaneously, there has been a chorus of demands within the party that Mr. Rahul
should be the prime minister.
When Mrs. Gandhi referred to "power",
she was obviously alluding to a situation in which the people vote a person and
party to power. It cannot be otherwise. A
party never does – and never can – vote itself or its leader into
"power". It is the exclusive prerogative of the people and people
alone, and not of the party workers, to put an individual or a political
organization into power. Therefore, Mrs. Gandhi anticipated that Rahul will get
"power" through people's mandate.
Yet, Mr. Rahul's stand remains confusing. About
three months back he boldly declared that he is ready to shoulder higher
responsibility and said that this will be decided by his mother and Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. In January he accepted the post of Vice-President
of the Party. But in the first week of March he declared that the post of PM is
not vacant and, therefore, his being a candidate does not arise. Two days
later, on March 5 he said, "Asking me whether you want to be prime
minister is a wrong question".
Further, "I want to give to the middle tier, empower the
middle-level leaders". Does it imply that his becoming a prime minister would
stand in the way of his realizing this noble objective?
On the other hand, the reaction of Congress Party
to Mr. Rahul's observations is all the more queer. While "make Rahul prime
minister" pitch remains sonorous the Congress, on the other hand, reacted on
March 6 saying, "As and when time will come the party will take an
appropriate decision…..he (Rahul) is the most appropriate candidate." It
clearly implies that the incumbent prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh may be
more "appropriate" but Rahul is "the most". It is, therefore,
but natural that the Congress should settle for the "the most appropriate"
candidate instead of the more one. In nutshell, "As and when time will
come the party will take an appropriate decision" to project "the
most appropriate candidate", that is Rahul, in place of Dr. Manmohan
Singh. That only means that it is only a matter of months, if not of days,
before Dr. Singh is eased out.
The everyday rant by Mr. Rahul Gandhi, his diehard
followers and the Congress Party is only making the already confused situation
worse confounded. While Mr. Gandhi seems to be trying to create an impression
that he is not after office, and, simultaneously, conveying a sense of feeling
to the people that he is a leader "reluctant" and shy to shoulder the
onerous responsibility. Mr. Rahul Gandhi's past record of leading his party to
victory at the hustings is not that much inspiring, given the results of
assembly elections in Gujarat, UP, Punjab, Bihar and more recently in Tripura.
And then the spectrum of assembly elections is looming large in important States
of Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and maybe even in Jharkhand.
It does not seem to give Mr. Rahul the
courage to take the final plunge. A defeat – even a minor win here and there –
is not likely to bolster his image and grit to take on the opposition by the
horn in the final battle for the 2014 LS elections in the next 11 months.
Therefore, in all probability, "the appropriate
time" of Congress conception will herald only if election results in these
States are heartening to inject in Mr. Rahul Gandhi the guts to take a final
plunge. By announcing him as party's prime ministerial candidate at the moment Congress
cannot afford to stake Mr. Rahul Gandhi's political career to the outcome of
assembly elections. It can turn disastrous and mar his chances to be projected
as the party's prime ministerial candidate in 2014. The tide in the assembly elections
will thus determine the course of his political future.
The writer is a Delhi based political
analyst and commentator
