VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
So Rahul Gandhi has sort of
decided to remain a bachelor like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is what he
recently indicated saying, “if I get married and have children, then I will
become a status quoist and will be concerned about bequeathing my position to
my children.”
There could be thousands and
millions of bachelors in the country but don’t be surprised at the comparison
because both Rahul and Vajpayee are intrinsically connected with politics. For
both of them, the bread and butter and their respective career was only
politics, nothing else. Though Vajpayee might have retired, but in his heydays,
he commanded a large following in his party like Rahul does in his own party now.
Also, the comparison is because one became the Prime Minister though after a
long waiting period in the opposition benches while the other was born with a
silver spoon and has been consistently hailed in his party as “Prime Minister
material” and “Prime Minister in-waiting”.
But the similarity between
Vajpayee and Rahul ends here as the Congress vice president is also
contemplating not to become Prime Minister which Vajpayee eventually became for
six years and again wanted to become in 2004 when the BJP lost the polls.
“Asking me whether you want to be Prime Minister is a wrong question,” he said
on the same day when he spoke about his intentions of not getting married. In
fact, Rahul has repeatedly spurned offers from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to
join his Cabinet and has never said that becoming the PM was his main objective
in politics.
In fact, the role model of Rahul,
as he claims, in not nurturing any ambitions for the top political job of the
country, is the Father of the Nation-Mahatma Gandhi. But unlike Rahul who does
not want to marry, the Mahatma married Kasturba, remained in wedlock for the
better part of his life till he became a widower, had children but did not
bequeath his position to his children nor did he become the Prime Minister of
the country.
No one perhaps seriously asked
Vajpayee why he remained a bachelor but by doing so, he did not bequeath his
name or status to anyone. It is a different matter that his foster son-in-law
was quite influential when he was the Prime Minister of the country. But he has
the surname of Bhattacharya and not Vajpayee.
Rahul would turn 43 in another
three months. Chroniclers of the family history point out that none in the
Nehru-Gandhi family, right from the days of Moti Lal Nehru married so late and
there is little chance of the Doon school and St Stephen’s College student and
Congress vice president to tie the knot now. Going by the current norms, most
of the weddings take place when the bride and groom are in their mid or late
20s and we find rare instances of people marrying in their 40s and 50s unless
it is a second or a third marriage for the person concerned. Even his younger
sister, Priyanka married almost a decade and half back when she was in her 20s.
But given the fact that Congress
is a unique institution of the world, a parallel of which can never be found in
modern history, where a dynasty has been running the party for the last almost
eight decades, what will happen to the glue which keeps the party together if
Rahul does not marry and bequeath his legacy? This is what bothered me last
week and I asked a leader of Congress after the statement of Gandhi counting on
the virtues of bachelorhood and showing indifference to power. The reply was
instant. “Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has two children”.
So, if Rahul Gandhi does not
marry and have children, he would not have to bother about bequeathing his
position to anyone. It will go to the next generation without him even asking
for it. Congress leaders and workers would crown one of them given the fact
that only a Gandhi can keep the party united. Remember, how a reluctant Sonia
Gandhi was made Congress president by the members of Congress Working
Committee, several years after the death of her husband Rajeev Gandhi. The
answer given by the Congress functionary explained a lot, making me speechless.
Coming back to what the Congress
vice president said, perhaps he has read Mahabharat, like most Indians, and is
also inspired by Bhishma Pitamah who vowed not to marry but to protect the
throne of Hastinapur. Finally, he found himself on the wrong side of virtue as
the protector of the wily Kauravas who were out to negate the rightful claims
of the Pandavas. Here, Rahul has the Congress to protect as no party leader has
known the party without a Gandhi at the helm. Or does the arrangement which the
party has presently, which is enjoying power without being responsible for it,
suit the style of Rahul.
As far as bachelorhood in
politics is concerned, BJP’s yet to be declared PM candidate, Narendra Modi too
is a bachelor though some Congress leaders believe otherwise and have often
gone to the extent of inventing the name of his wife and even her profession.
But one thing is sure, like Gandhi, Modi too apparently believes that marriage
and having children makes one status quoist though he has never said so from
any forum or even informal discussions. He too does not have children so there
is no question of bequeathing his legacy to anyone.
Of course you have some other
famous bachelors in Indian politics like Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Mamata
Banerjee in West Bengal and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu who are heading the
governments there and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh who has been in and out of
government for the last almost two decades. But none of them are the competitors
of Rahul in national politics.
The only serious competition
which Rahul faces in 2014 will be from a fellow bachelor Narendra Modi. If
Rahul indeed thinks that bachelorhood is a virtue in politics, then obviously
Modi too has this virtue. If Congress makes bachelorhood as the basic
qualification for prime ministership, Modi will get in while his rivals in BJP
would have no chance as most of them, including LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and
Arun Jaitley are married. But like Vajpayee, bachelorhood is the only common
thing which Modi shares with Rahul. Unlike the Congress vice president, Modi
has so far never expressed his abhorrence for the post of Prime Minister. He
has been the Chief Minister of Gujarat for over a decade
and obviously would want to climb higher in the political journey and considers
the desire for prime ministership as legitimate.
So in the run-up to 2014, we may
perhaps see a reluctant prime ministerial candidate (Rahul) and a candidate who
wants this post (Modi). As both of them are bachelors, none of them have an
advantage over each other on that count unless Rahul does a
U-turn in the next 12 months as
the campaign for Lok Sabha elections build up. Over to the voters of the
country. (March 11, 2013)
http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/132463-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/132654-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html
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