Manmohan Singh as President and “Target Modi”
Mulayam Singh and Mamata Bannerjee have suggested new names to replace Pranab Mukherjee. And the biggest surprise is Dr. Manmohan Singh. Why would they do so?
Interestingly, First Post has come up with interesting direction of where the things are going, based on some facts:
Mamata Bannerjee brought out Somnath Chatterjee’s name to spite CPM a party whose veteran Chatterjee was, but parted ways on Nuclear issue.
Mulayam Singh Yadav is “warming up to Congress”.
Neither of the two could have announced Dr. Manmohan Singh’s name as his present and future is completely decided by Sonia Gandhi. So her nod is a must.
Dr. Singh wants to take over the Finance portfolio after Pranab Mukherjee is sent to the President’s office to salvage reforms.
Sonia’s aim in the next elections is to have Rahul as the next PM. But his goal is most challenged by Narendra Modi.
Modi will be busy with Gujarat’s elections later this year. He will most probably use that as a launching pad for the General Election campaign.
If Modi has to be countered by Sonia Gandhi, then elections need to happen soon.
Sending of Dr. Singh to President’s House may be one way of pre-empting the elections as well as installing Rahul Gandhi as the main candidate.
Given that Modi is busy paving his path in BJP, as he has taken Sanjay Joshi out while LK Advani and Sushma Swaraj seem to have teamed up against Modi to uphold the old (and failed) guard – he is probably most vulnerable in this time. His goal obviously is to consolidate his place in BJP and structure the party which is best primed to win in 2014.
If however, the elections is pre-empted, he will be caught ill-prepared to handle Rahul Gandhi squarely with his best foot forward. That is the eventuality that many on the UPA side will be thinking about.
And, that is where the interests of Mamata Bannerjee, Mulayam Yadav and Sonia Gandhi converge. It is “Target Modi” again.