Saturday, January 24, 2009

UPA's Options

After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's illness and second bypass surgery, the UPA is now left with no prime ministerial candidate for upcoming General Elections. Depending on the health status of the PM Congress will have to decide atleast one name very shortly to project him/her (obviously him) for the top post.
Already UPA is suffering from deficit of star leaders and after this surgery UPA's election preparations have gone for postmortem until the new name comes up.
Since Congress chief Sonia Gandhi seems not to be very happy with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, there is only one option left for UPA and that is Rahul. The name has been echoing in 10 Janpath and other Congress offices from last many months, especially after the Trust Vote.
Sonia Gandhi has distributed the PM's responsibilities to many other ministers. Though she gave very crucial roles and functions to Mukherjee but still Sonia's trust level on Mukerjee can be seen very clearly.
There is a long list of names in Congress and supporting parties, but no one will dare to go against Gandhi's like always. And after J&K polls Rahul has made is possition really strong in the UPA, the Rahul-Omar friendship, earlier which was outside, now can be seen within the UPA as National Congress chief Omar announces his party's merger with the UPA.
And the most important thing is being stronger than the opponents, and for that UPA's best man (no other than Rahul) has to be projected. Otherwise NDA has its strongest man, L K Advani, out on the front from a long time. If the worst poll result comes for nations biggest alliances (NDA and UPA) and both don't get the majority then Maya Behenji is geared up with her arsenal from very long time, and UNPA, with the support of Left front, is all set to get both NDA and UPA down.
So if PM Manmohan Singh doesn't come out 'fit-for-fight' form AIIMS, UPA has to get its best man on the job.