PM in waiting seems to wait forever !

Politics often looks like the cosmos. Too far off to disturb us, except that we see it in our skies, our television screens inside our homes daily. Political leaders are the stars with all their loaded questions and rapid views, designed to amplify one star or another  (or to amplify themselves), the media has become the atmosphere of our life.

The political temperature rose in tandem with the mercury before round two of India’s general elections.

Amidst grueling campaign the lack of issues in this election has been amplified by the unnecessary personal attacks launched by the Prime Minister in waiting Mr. L.K.Advani against the  current ( and , in all likelihood, the future) PM.

But at the end of the day, Mr. L.K.Advani’s tactics backfired and he was rather stung by the surprisingly bitter counterattacks of the PM, who has managed to wound the former with his sharp diatribes on Kandhar, Babri masjid and Gujrat pogrom. It would have made sense for Advani to be doubly careful while attacking the PM, who is among the few political leaders commanding respect among Indian masses. The PM is a major plus point of the congress in the ongoing electoral battle, and by attacking the PM, Mr. Advani has asked for trouble. Naturally, the PM skillfully used Advani’s own words against him.

The BJP claims that its prime ministerial candidate L.K.Advani would provide a strong leadership. But the question arises as to why is he trying to put the blame regarding the Kandahar plane hijack episode on Atal Behari Vajpayee and on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and why is he trying to distance himself from that decision?

Is it the sign of a strong or ‘mazboot’ leader who leads from the front? Or one who tries to dishonestly shift the blame on to his own party and his own leaders to try to avoid tainting himself?

We wonder, how can a person who runs away from journalists would prove to be a strong leader or deal with terrorists?

Mr. Advani would have fared better if he had chosen his words more carefully, and planned his defence in advance before lunging at the PM. He could have expected the PM’s counterattack and prepared his defence on Kandahar incident accordingly, but he was not prepared. He should never have described PM as a weak leader. The problem with the word weak is that we are all weak in some areas and strong in others. Like, in the PM’s words, Mr. Advani is strong in speech, but weak in personality.

The so called TINA ( there is no alternative) factor is at work here. He is among the few PMs to run a government successfully for a full term of five years.

As he is the most largely acceptable face within the coalition. it was this image  of Dr. Singh that enabled him to draw the support of the Samajwadi Party and gave him the strength to push the nuke deal through even amidst opposition within his own party.

He went to the extent of to quit if the nuke deal fell through.

This acceptable face of Dr. Singh has given the congress the strength to think of forming a government by stitching post poll alliances projecting Dr. Singh as their liberal face for the post of PM.

However, the problem with Mr. Advani is that he has overestimated himself. He has concluded right before the elections that he is the prime minister in waiting. So confident is Mr. Advani of holding the reigns of power that he missed scoring on Dr. Singh’s real areas of weakness.

Advani could also have made the point that NDA, after negotiating a tougher economic environment, took hard economic decisions by raising oil prices and privatising public sector companies. It left a booming economy for the UPA.

However, guided as he is by the RSS, he doesn’t see even NDA’s reasonably good works during its time at the centre.

When Advani suggested the country should try to bring home the booty squirreled away by Indian nationals in Swiss banks, the PM pronounced Advani’s policies as bankrupt. The Congress instead accused him of alerting the economic offenders who had parked illegal funds abroad. Home Minister P.C.Chidamabaram attacked Advani by stating he wondered whether Mr. Advani was unwittingly alerting those who had deposits abroad to rearrange their affairs in the next four weeks before a new government was sworn in. Mr. Advani slipped on this ground as well.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Vajpayee, who spoke little but said a lot, Advani is prolific both in print and on the stump. In his autobiography, My Country-My Life Advani writes that he did not know about the prisoners for hostages deal that was struck with the hijackers at Kandahar. The whole country was following the drama that ended with the swap. But the home minister of the time is on record that he was not in the know.

Probably, Mr. Advani has the mindset of leader who has spent most of his lifetime in the opposition. The BJP would have done better to project a more positive face with fresher ideas.

We may never know what the verdict of the people is in store for Mr. L.K. Advani. But it seems as though he will ever remain the Prime Minister in waiting.

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