Rahul’s Alternatives To Narendra Modi

We had written a blog in response to a blog by MJ Akbar. Both the articles were written before Rahul’s flameout in UP. The Akbar article was spurred by a choreographed meeting of Rahul Gandhi with young students in Gujarat. It was a meeting that the Rajkumar would like to forget. He thought that he would be able to help his party win one of the by-elections. He first lost face and then the election. In this particular meeting a young girl (God bless her) asked the Rajkumar if there were any leaders in Congress who could measure up to Modi. This what MJ Akbar wrote about that exchange:

Rahul Gandhi had four names on the tip of his tongue: Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and A K Antony. It is interesting that three of the four did not contest the Lok Sabha elections, and the voters in Chidambaram’s own constituency had such a poor view of his development capabilities that he was declared defeated before he was declared elected in the 2009 general elections. It would be interesting if Jairam Ramesh could find a constituency from where he could get elected on a development platform, but his ministry does take its priority cues from Rahul Gandhi’s travel plans.

What was interesting is that Rahul did not contest the statement about Modi being good and that he himself compared Bhai Narendra with his best Ministers. That these four pillars of Congress cannot hold a candle to Bhai Narendra is a different discussion. The point of this current post is to examine what became of these four ministers who Rahul claims to be as good as Bhai Narendra.

The PM’s inability to lead the nation and his party are there for all to see. Since Rahul’s statement (which was over a year ago) his party has lost every state election. Barring minuscule successes, his second tenure has been worse that his first and that is saying something. He does not take any responsibility for his administrations mistakes and has shown that his love for his PMship has taken the sheen of the oft-repeated excuse in his favor – “He is an honest man”.

There has not been a major attack on us during Chidambaran’s tenure as Home Minister. That could be because the Pakistanis are caught up in their own lies (Osama in their backyard) and are too busy to dig out of the hole. Chidambaran is well known for coining the term “Saffron Terror”. His tenure as a Finance Minister (which is his real area of expertise) was extremely unremarkable and he has been indirectly implicated in the 2G mega-scam.

I like Jairam Ramesh only because he showed a missionary zeal for the Environment, a topic close to my heart. He repeatedly spoke up for cleaning up Gangaji and other rivers, which again is a topic close to my heart. However, he never could get anything done and was shunted out to a very unremarkable portfolio which is ironic considering he was one of the four pillars.

That left AK Antony. He was plodding along until the recent episode with Gen. Singh blew up in his face. Antony has a reputation similar to Manmohan Singh. He is an honest man. But is that enough of a qualification to be holding one of the most important portfolios? We are surrounded by wolves (read China and Pakistan) and it seems that we have a dilapidated and a moth eaten Army. The man in charge seems to think that doing nothing is good enough as long as it fulfils the criteria of honesty. NOT GOOD ENOUGH SIR! We need to keep moving with times. As it is our DRDO is not the most efficient organization. We need to be procuring the best possible equipment at the cheapest prices to help our country. During his rather long tenure, Antony has done nothing about weeding out the corrupt practices in arms and equipment procurement. Sitting there and twiddling thumbs (honestly of course) does not count. Every analyst out there worth his or her salt thinks that Antony has been a complete disaster. However, he seems to be in sync with the general UPA plan of action, which seems to be WISHFUL THINKING.

Rahul’s four “maharathis” cannot hold a candle to Narendra Modi who is not only honest but a man of action. If these are the best Congress has to offer then I hope that the voters are taking notice because the next general elections are around the corner and we all need to make an important and a long reaching decision.

Our blogpost mentioned in the article and link to MJ Akbar's article can be found at: http://thenethindu.blogspot.com/2010/12/rahul-gandhi-exposed-yet-again.html