"Every good drama needs a few sub-plots whirling through the mainframe. The most captivating within our current political theatre is surely the joust that P Chidambaram has begun with Narendra Modi. On surface level, it is not much more than a claim for primacy between a politician who inherited wealth, English and Harvard as a birthright, and the outsider who learnt life’s lessons in a teashop. But no story-within-a-story is worth the price of admission if it is limited to the obvious.
We can never be sure what transpires within the recesses of the mind, let alone the heart. But one wonders if Chidambaram is also signalling, with his jibes and jabs, to his own party that he would have done a far better job than Rahul Gandhi if he had been made Congress candidate for prime minister."
"If Chidambaram does believe this, he is right. He, and indeed at least three other Congress leaders, would have ensured that Congress did not fade away mid-journey. Others have internalised the angst of legitimate ambition denied; Chidambaram has gone vocal. Nothing is more compelling evidence than his extraordinary statement that he is “not unhappy” at Jayalalithaa’s desire to release Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins. Chidambaram was among those for whom Rajiv’s tragic death was a personal, in addition to being a national, loss. He has suddenly put some distance from emotional bonds with the ruling Nehru-Gandhi family.
There were at least three occasions on which Congress could have signalled that the family was only part of the Congress rather than the whole of it. The first was the Presidential election of 2012. If Dr Manmohan Singh had been shifted upstairs to Rashtrapati Bhavan and Pranab Mukherjee made PM, Congress would have been in play in the general election of 2014. Mukherjee was the opponent that BJP feared most. He had experience, articulation, party commitment and would have been able to retain as well as bring in allies.
"The second person on BJP’s worry list was Meira Kumar. She would have energised the traditional Congress base by restoring its lost links with the Dalit voter. Her pedigree is classy and classic; her father Jagjivan Ram, a veteran of the freedom movement, and defence minister during the Bangladesh war, always believed that he was best suited to become PM. Both Congress and Opposition denied him this office. Meira Kumar has history in her profile. Her personal temperament would also have been a major asset, for she is accommodating rather than confrontational; any personal attack on her would have boomeranged. No one in Congress dared mention her name.
Congress had a final opportunity after December’s Assembly election results, when it had become obvious even to die hard loyalists that Rahul Gandhi was the weakest link in the Congress leadership chain. With Sheila Dikshit having lost Delhi, Meira Kumar and Chidambaram were the only credible claimants still standing. But Mrs Sonia Gandhi put the fate of Congress in the trust of genes instead of ability."
INDIA HONEST unblushingly agrees with Akbar for the prediction on Congress' future destiny after the 2014 election. Though many within Congress still hope that may be the young Rahul will turn mythological Karna of the Mahabharata, and find a way out of this self imposed "Chakravihue".
But no,the written down fate was different, as when Rahul's taking some straight questions from Times Now's interview with Arnab Goswami, has completely exposed him,so out of depth .re-born. Rahul comes out as an innocent, well-intentioned person, but not as one to be regarded as the future ruler of India.
That also made the party running into a tough job, so close to an important central election, of defending his naivety, incoherence, an overt lack of confidence while taking questions and "repetitive pre-meditated answers even when questions are specific".
The ongoing political rallies are most unlikely to win admirers for Rahul Gandhi and make people queue up in large numbers at the polling stations to vote for the Congress in the coming elections. Coffins are ready, only final nails have to be fixed by the people in the next election, pushing the once dominant party Congress to history books.