There are any number of problems to be solved, any number of new initiatives to be taken. On balance, it is a job for a young team led by a 41-year-old and not for a bunch of septuagenarians
Yes, the Congress should make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister as soon as possible. I am not Digvijay Singh writing under a false name; I am a concerned citizen applying his mind to a question that every Indian should be asking himself.
We have to accept it: Rahul Gandhi will become prime minister, now, or in the next few years. Why not now?
Some senior party members shushed Digvijay into temporary silence, but the whole of the Congress Party, from Pranab Mukherjee to the woman who sweeps the floor in the Akbar Road headquarters, wants Rahul Gandhi to occupy the seat in the South Block office of the prime minister.
He has the pedigree and his mother and his family desperately want the dynasty to rule again. Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi--with this ancestry, any man deserves a chance to rule, whether he makes a beggar's breakfast of the job or not.
He is young and has the physical and mental energy needed to be a dynamic prime minister who will solve India's most pressing problems and take initiatives that will make life easier for all of us, industrialist or upper division clerk.
Take the economic problems; inflation, for instance. Till now, the government has been sticking to stale, decades-old solutions touted by the Reserve Bank of raising the repo and reverse repo rates "n" times in "n-1" weeks. Rahul could do something imaginative to sharply increase supply, like his grandmother did.
In 1974, inflation was running at 36% per annum. In one unbelievable nationwide swoop, she arrested tens of thousands of smugglers and within weeks prices started dipping. (That the swoop on smugglers provided the grand rehearsal for the overnight arrest of thousands of opposition party members in 1975 is neither here nor there.)
Take infrastructure. The ports are clogged and imports and exports are moving at a trickle. Rahul could do for the ports what AtalBehari Vajpayee did for the national highways. The Golden Qaudrilateral and its offshoots are a pleasure on which to drive, trucks move much faster, diesel is saved and goods reach consuming centres much more quickly.
The stock markets, mutual funds, financial institution, SEBI and even the RBI need a bit of a shake-up. There are a large number of suggestions and plans from any numbers of experts--not least of them the founder-editors of Moneylife. Rahul could look at all of them and bring in reforms that will make our financial system stronger than ever.
Rahul has been spending a lot of time among the poor in Uttar Pradesh. He talks to them, eats with them and sleeps in Dalit houses when on tour. If this experience has not taught him many lessons about making life better for the poor, nothing will.
So, there are any number of problems to be solved, any number of new initiatives to be taken. On balance, it is a job for a young team led by a 41-year-old and not for a bunch of septuagenarians.
This UPA government has another two-odd years before it faces the electorate. What better time to apprentice a young, fourth-generation scion?
The bigger question is: Will Rahul Gandhi be a success as prime minister, or will he bury the Congress so deep that the party will not be able to lift its head for decades?
Since he is the fourth in the dynasty, it all depends on what he has inherited from his father, grand-mother and great-grandfather. Jawaharlal was great, Indira was brilliant, but flawed (she was the fount of corruption in India) and Rajiv was dumb and flawed. So, which one does Rahul take after?
It all comes down to genetic dice, doesn't it? You or me, or Sonia, or Rahul can roll the dice. If the number that comes up is 10, he will be like Jawaharlal; if the number is six, he will be like Indira; if the number is two, he will be like Rajiv. Whatever the number, we the people have to accept the roll of the dice, the result of the gamble.
If Rahul fails, there's always Priyanka.
Let me leave you with a Tamil proverb which translates as: "Whether the king rules or the beggar, the people's lot will not change". Best of luck, India.
(R Vijayraghavan has been a professional journalist for more than four decades, specialising in finance, business and politics. He conceived and helped to launch Business Line, the financial daily of The Hindu group. He can be contacted at [email protected].)
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The present team of sycophants led by the likes PC whom Digvijay Singh calls "intellectually arrogant", Kapil Sibal of the Sibal Society leading the team of GOM to meet a Sadhu Baba at the airport and bad mouth him later are all leading the upto now clean PM up the garden path and sending the nation into a mess.
It is time the the old order changeth by the old foggies giving way to the new. Much as I disliked Indira's Emergency ways, she just disciplined a drifting nature. I had predicted her return after the old guys lead by Morarji/Jagjivan fought for the office.
Keep aside the Dynastic Issue - Kashmir has Omar Abdullah. NCP has Supriya Sule, Reds have Brinda Karat, DMK has the siblings.
Anyway the Rahul with the gen-next brigade is a better bet than the head less BJP with the corrupt Karnataka baggage! Others are mere kichdi like the one man independent Madu Koda government.
I began by saying that I'm no Rahul fan.
Atalji did good work, what happened to their "Shining India"?
BJP is still groping in the dark for a credible leader with a national image.
Narendrabhai, the CEO of Gujarat, is good for Apro Gujarat!
Narendra joins the other two Ns Nitish from Bihar and Naveen from Odisha in the race.
By the way my name also begins with an N. I'm miles away from politics.
Comments I will offer.
So best choice is Rahul. Then,Priyanka,Vadhra.
If,for any reason Rahul does not become father !
Then who ! Any pet from Gandhi family !
Height is inspite of congress being oldest party it does not have a single capable person beyond Gandhi family to become our PM. Shame & Pity !
What the country needs is a politician with an inclination to change things just pedigree won't help. I shudder to think that there is no single politician worth his salt to meet that criteria. One nearest is Mr. Modi of Gujarat, but let alone congress will his own partymen allow him to take up the responsibility
It is revealing that in his seven-year stewardship of the nation, Singh has not progressed the country beyond the 1992 liberalisation threshold. Promises apart, there have been no second stage economic reforms, no revision of labour laws, no new land acquisition norms, no easing of the bureaucratised functioning of the state to enable business and industry to really take-off and produce wealth for the country (as has happened in China), no nothing.
Manmohan Singh does best when he is given orders that he can implement, but there’s no Narasimha Rao to provide guidance and take political responsibility, only a fractious National Advisory Council running interference, speaking at will, in different tongues, and advancing disparate mainly statistical agendas under the aegis of Sonia, who has nothing to offer Singh by way of policy direction or content.
Open eyes and mind-you can have much much better person in INDIA than Gandhi family.Pl come up.I do not agree with your views at all.
No more puppets to run the country.
I was in New Delhi at the height of the Emergency years and the Janata Party birth where again the old men Morarji, Jagjivan,Charan , Bahuguna, squabbled while clowns like Raj Narain with Swami Babas clowns set up a government that was doomed for failure ( read All the Janata Men by Janardan Thakur, Vikas1978 for details).
We desperately needed a danda raj and the Iron Lady wielded it most effectively. Only Sanjay proved to be a spoilt sport. Some order was in fact restored.
Can any one identify a single capable leader to take over under the present scenario - Pranobda has made his intention of stepping into the Rashtrapati Bhavan next year, has put his son in politics, PC is termed 'intellectually arrogant' by his own partymen and the Shivganga election petition is haunting him, Anthony is too soft,Pawar out of reckoning.
The gen-next from within the Congress has perforce to fall upon Rahul, the TINA factor playing, notwithstanding the dynastic rule issue. At least he has a pedegree of the Nehru-Gandhi. All the Janata veterans or even the successive VP Singh hotch-potch couldn't deliver. BJP's Shining India lost badly.
The names of the next bright stars beginning with N - Nitish, Narendra and Naveen are speculated to be the alternative. Even my name begins with a N but I firmly believe that politics is the last resort of a scroundrel and it not my cup of tea!
every department want corruption from mnister level to peon level when people are thirst for justice even they are not giving postive response to prime mnister man mohan singh . no body listen the letters of parlimentment of india ,not the president of india neither national human rights of india so when he wants to jump in strong poltics he will fail people only want justice from any body he will give social service to greviancess to public thereafter he has to think for prime mnister [email protected]
1] corruption will vanish from system like a magic
2] indo pak relations will bcome very friendly.
3] global warming comes to end
4] monson will be on perfect time.
5] all the problems in world has only one solution : Rahul gandhi / gandhi parivar.... if he is not, then priyanka is ready. if she fails, then robert vadhera is there or his son / daughter. thank god rahul is not married , then we can have very much choice for PM post.
I guess we should be optimistic about future. The governance is changing. 10 years ago no one would have imagined a consumer court or even RTI. We should be optimistic that times are changing and they are changing for good (Though the pace of change is slow).
As for TN, I guess politics in this region are more about display of ego. If DMK comes back to power the reverse would happen. In fact we see a flip flop on every election. I wish lokpal gets implemented soon and perhaps there would be a provision where I can question these activities.
In addition I would also like to have minutes of meeting after every meeting and agenda before every meeting and video conferencing (even better) of all meetings of NAC & UPA working comittee. as a provison of RTI or lokpal I would really like to see what soup they cook behind closed doors.
An even better thing would be to disclose meeting of political parties. May be this will make them more transparent and bring their true intent. May be we can choose a good candidate then.