Speculations of the Congress’ prince charming getting abigger role are a seasonal affair. They are having a rerun after Rahul Gandhimet Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh on October 18. A day before this meeting,Congress President, Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister had separate meetingswith President, Pranab Mukherjee, a day after it was Rahul who went to theRashtrapati Bhavan.
Predictably, there was no official word on what transpiredin these meetings. So, observers were left to interpret the parleys in thecontext of the talk of a cabinet reshuffle, made necessary by the exit of theTrinamool Congress ministers as well as two 2G-tainted DMK ministers.
Will Rahul join the cabinet? The standard answer from theparty, articulated this time by spokesman Sandeep Dikshit, is: “Rahul and theparty will decide.”
On one hand, the Prime Minister has time and again invitedthe young MP to join the government, and on the other hand, ever since theelectoral victory of 2009, partymen are clamouring for a ‘larger role’ for him.
If Rahul’s hard work during the campaign in Uttar Pradeshthis year had borne fruit, joining the government “ or even leading it, as manypredict “ would have been a natural follow-up. Given the loss in the largeststate, he was forced to go in hibernation, which shows no sign of ending beforethe December elections in Gujarat.
And, yet, the Congress has few options other than pinninghopes on the young face if it plans to make a comeback after the dip inpopularity. For close to two years now the government led by it has beendelivering scams on daily basis. It has been cornered by CAG and the popularagitation led by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal. An economic slump, coupledwith exceptional inflation, is adding to Manmohan Singh’s travails, and so dothe pulls and pressures of a coalition regime. Opposition leaders have termedit the worst government we have had so far, and started predicting elections in2013.
The Congress showed little courage to fight back till PChidambaram moved back to the finance ministry and started off with somebig-ticket reforms. A ‘bigger role’ for Rahul can be the next step of the Congressfight back.
The risk factor, however, is that the primeminister-in-waiting would be ‘blooded’, so to say, when the party’s popularityis at its lowest. Add to that the high possibility of the party losing the nextelectoral battle “ in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The Congress is not likelyto gamble its ace card when chips are so down.
in association with Governance Now
