WHERE THERE IS A SINGH!

SUNNY THOMAS

To prove one’s impotence, one doesn’t have to contest a Presidential election, as Purno Sangma did! But the real loser of the Presidential election is not Sangma but his sponsors, Jaya Jayalalithaa (which ironically means the victorious) and Naveen Patnaik (which, I think, means a new general). Shakespeare in his dramatic wisdom foresaw the vicarious defeat of Jaya and the humbling of the general without victory and asked, `What’s in a name?’

  

The Bengal tigress, Mamata Banerjee, tried to remote-control Delhi from Kolkata and did not quite succeed. But she is not a loser by any reckoning, and she lost nothing except her face. Politics is a long-drawn battle and she has many more battles to lose before she learns the right lessons and win. 

   

Will you be surprised if Congress does a hat-trick by winning 2014 not because of its performance but because of the total disarray of its ideological enemies, some of whom go out of their way to help the GOP? BJP is finished if they don’t project Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. And BJP is finished if they do. Not projecting someone is even worse. BJP is in a trap of its own making, where outsiders cannot help. Just as ambition got the better of Jaya and Mamata, it has now got the better of Modi.

Strategy comes before ambition, pals; that’s the lesson of politics. Credit must be given to Dr Manmohan Singh and his mentor Sonia Gandhi for outplaying their allies and enemies. As they say with a pinch of salt, Where there is a Manmohan Singh, there is a way (take it with a pinch of salt, if you disapprove of the blue murder)!  

Whatever Pranab Dada does, the credit always goes to Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi! Mercifully, it is happening for the last time. The greatest contribution of Sonia Gandhi to Indian politics is in putting the right people in the right place. She elevated the least likely man to the Prime Minister’s Office, and in doing so she did in effect right the wrong done to the Sikh community which happened at the beginning of her husband’s tenure following her mother-in-law’s tragic assassination. And now she has elevated the right man to the right place. It must be said that her motives are far nobler than her detractors’, and now one can expect a Dr Rajendra Prasad in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.   

   

He expressed my passions on the screen far better than I could ever imagine; he shed my tears far more dramatically than I could ever do; he flashed my smile far more romantically than I could ever do; and he broke the hearts of a million girls with my smile, and it was my smile that mesmerized them and made them swoon. The world will never know me, but they knew him as Rajesh Khanna. It was my smile, my tears and my passion, and hence my passion for him that made him a super-star, the first of its kind, you might say.    

President Obama has every right to speak, especially before the election. If he doesn’t Governor Romney will. He will turn the anger of millions of jobless Americans against Obama, and disastrous will be the consequences. To pre-empt Romney turning the American anger, Obama spoke to turn the same anger at India. `Hate India, not me’ encapsulates the spirit of Obama’s message. Intelligent Indians know that and pity the predicament of the President, who has failed to do a Franklin Roosevelt in creating jobs.

It is sad that India’s cultural heartland is degenerating into a land of goons and obscurants courtesy Akilesh Yadav. In his victory, people saw enormous potential in the youth leader. But, alas, true to his kangaroo education in the land of kangaroos, he has failed to display a national vision and character worthy of admiration – character is a rare phenomenon in politics, though. Groomed in realpolitik by his father, he would ever remain a regional satrap and a powerful chieftain, but unfit for Delhi.