PM in waiting?

It is election time in India and the political scene is nicely setup now. Being an avid follower of politics in India and world at large, I thought it will be prudent to actually take sides in this election and decide which party and person is better to rule India at this time.

Although India is a parliamentary form of democracy as opposed to USA which is a presidential form of democracy, recently political parties have started the practice of announcing their chief ministerial or prime ministerial candidates. BJP specially has been doing this consistently in state and central elections.

So here is my opinion on some of the candidates that are in the fray.

1. L K Advani

He has been the strong man of BJP and for long the think tank of the BJP. The duo of Atal ji and Advani has shaped the BJP and Jan Sangh earlier and taken the party to this level. Although, I have had several ideological differences with the BJP as a party, but I feel, Advani is the best person to lead our contry. His ideas and ideals are very praiseworthy and he has shown tremendous amount of credibility and commitment to the national cause. He is a true democrat at heart and a man who has been in politics for more than 5 decades, and has been in opposition for most of his political career. This itself prooves that he is not in politics for power and truly believes in "nation first" approach in his politics. At the same time he has performed reasonably well when NDA was in power for 6 years. His performance as home minister and later as deputy PM was very good and he did a lot of things, which if given more time would have succeeded. No mention of Advani would be complete, unless one talks about his controversial speech about Jinnah in Pakistan. He was misunderstood by his own people, but ultimately was vindicated, when the party and the so called pariwar accepted him as the PM candidate. I have immense respect for him for not backing out and maintaining his views.


2. Manmohan Singn

Manmohan Singh is probably the first non-political PM of India. He first came into limelight for his role in the 90's when he opened the Indian economy under the mandate given to him by the then PM Narsimha Rao. What he did then was the best thing that has ever happened to India. The events then really showed the country and world how a crisis can be turned into an opportunity and ultimately a reward for generations to reap. When he was elected as the PM (after Sonia bowed out of the race), the idea was that he will handle the governance part and Sonia Gandhi will handle the political component of the Central Govt. As it turned out, it is not possible to separate out the two. As happened in the case of nuclear deal, the PM was the only person pushing for the deal. For that I give credit to him. However, this govt under him has like other Congress govts, not done enough to tackle terrorism. The way Mumbai attacks were handled, left many questions unanswered. The biggest problem I see in Manmohan Singh is communication with public at large. I have never seen him interact with the media and convey his thoughts clearly. In today's world of internet and over communication, how can Manmohan Singh get away with such abysmal level of comunication? I don't think, in the end it has helped his govt or his personal image. He seems to be a bureaucrat/academician trapped in the political ramblings and looks totally out of place and out of touch with ground reality. He probably is a VERY good minister for finance, but can not lead the country.

3. Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi, another political heavyweight from Gujrat BJP is known for his "moditva" which I like to call as "macho hiindutva". Although he has done a lot of development work for the state of Gujrat and has turned the state into a engine of nationa's economic development, but how can we overlook the immoral acts that were done under his govt in the post Godhra riots? Specially, as till today, he has not shown the kind of remorse as is expected for a Chief minister of a state where the minorities were badly crushed and killed in what was proclaimed to be an act of state sponsored terrorism? So till he comes out clean on Godhra and is willing to take all the stakeholders (minority or majority) together and provides demonstrable justice to the people who were directly impacted in the riots, he will always find it impossible to be able to gain support of the entire country. To be a PM, he needs to be acceptable by larger sections of the society. So Mr Modi, for this reason alone, I would not support your PM claim at this point of time.

4. Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gnadhi has a tremendous advantage (unfairly) because he has a Gandhi surname to use and hence has a lot of political capital associated with him by default. However, I don't think, he is even close to being ready for being the PM of this country. There are a lot of tests yet for him and he needs to demonstrate his capability, maturity and even understanding of the problems being faced by the country and what his thoughts are on the same. So Mr Rahul Gandhi, its time to get hands dirty and learn the realpolitik and the reality of the Indian state.

5. Pranab Mukharjee

He is probably the dark horse to be the PM in my opinion. He is the man who I feel is the only politician in Congress who has a vision, grasp, breadth, understanding of issues faced by the country today nationally as well as internationally. Unlike Manmohan Singh, he is a real politician as well and has been the savior of this govt politically. He was the person who was talking to the left during the entire time and has known to have good contacts across the political spectrum of India. Even Advani recently hailed Pranab da and praised him for his role. Internationally, he is the most visible face of India today. He has talked straight and in stern fashion with Pakistan and tried to convey the anger, frustration and disappointment of 1 billion Indian people in his conversations with diplomats and world leaders. If Congress comes to power this time, I really feel, he should be made the PM instead of Mr Manmohan Singh.

Considering all the factors, I feel, the only person who is ready at this point to be the PM of this country are either Mr Advani or Mr Pranab Mukharjee. Of the two I would support Mr Advani more than Pranab da, simply because Mr Advani needs to be given a chance to complete the tasks that were incomplete in the Vajpayee govt.

I wish my best luck to Advani and wish he wins the Indian elections which should be announced any time now.