For Manmohan Singh, the PM-in-waiting, it is a bigger challenge | Girish Nikam

Published on 19-08-2008 In General

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For Manmohan Singh, the PM-in-waiting, it is a bigger challenge

For all those who were hoping, and many believing, that this would be the last term as the Prime Minister for Dr.Manmohan Singh a clear signal has been given. The "official" endorsement given unambiguously by Congress President Sonia Gandhi last week, that he would "certainly" hoist the national flag on the ramparts of the Red Fort next August 15, should put an end to all speculations about who will be the Prime Ministerial candidate of the UPA in the next year's Lok Sabha elections.

By clearing this confusion well in advance, Sonia has done the UPA and the Congress party a good deed. Especially since the sycophants of the "family" were out to project a still much-to-learn, Rahul Gandhi as the next choice. For Dr. Manmohan Singh himself too, this huge public assertion of confidence in him by Sonia, should act as a morale booster, and activate him to take the tasks on hand with renewed interest and urgency. Sonia's task to re-anoint Dr. Singh was made easy by the other UPA leader, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar last week, who also made no bones of his choice of Manmohan Singh as the UPA's Prime Ministerial candidate, even after the next elections.

No one however should know better than Manmohan Singh himself that this public endorsement of his candidature by two of the most important leaders of the UPA is more of a challenge than anything else. The onus is now on him to tackle the innumerable problems that his Government faces, and get the UPA battle ready for the next year's elections. Not to say, win it, so that the optimism displayed by Sonia of him hoisting the flag at Red Fort in 2009 comes to fruition.

Manmohan Singh and his Government however have a long way to go before it can claim to be in the driver's seat as far as the next elections are concerned. Though his Government has certainly some landmark achievements to its credit in its last four years and more in office, lately it has saddled itself with huge problems, which is already causing understandable concern. The latest being the imbroglio in Jammu and Kashmir. It is difficult not to put the blame directly at the doorstep of Manmohan Singh and his PMO for the escalating tension in the State. Many Congress leaders wonder, why the PM continued to repose confidence in a Governor (Lt.Gen.S.K.Sinha), whose right wing proclivities was well known to everyone. Even as the Governor was going about laying the foundation for the trouble, which finally erupted in the State, the masterly inaction of both the PMO and the Home Ministry in anticipating the problem was too stark. It was also inexplicable that the Prime Minister took so many weeks to call an all party meeting (though so far nothing has come off it), even as the communal cauldron had started burning in the State. If there is a challenge of monumental proportions facing the UPA government it is the situation in J&K, which seems to be spiraling out of control by the day, with a clueless Government watching helplessly.

Manmohan Singh's single minded focus on the nuclear deal, even his admirers in the Cabinet and his own party, admit has been the reason for the situation in J&K going out of control.

During his address to the nation from the Red Fort, of course he made some noise about the State, but it hardly struck a chord and certainly did not invoke any confidence of his Government being under control.

What is almost as politically "dangerous" as J&K is the sky rocketing inflation. Under any other regime, this problem could have been seen as the handiwork of a callous or incompetent government at the worst, but for a Government under an economist Prime Minister, it is terribly embarrassing, to say the least. For Manmohan Singh to shift the blame on "foreign" factors for it, shows poorly of his Government's ability to manage the problem, especially now that the oil prices, which was blamed as one of the main factors, have started falling.

While these two problems alone can act as a serious impediment to the UPA's quest for another positive mandate from the people, it also is saddled with various other problems. The ongoing probe by a Parliamentary committee of the cash for votes scam, can itself prove to be pretty controversial, whatever might be the findings. This is bound to raise more suspicion about the way in which the confidence vote was won. Though Manmohan Singh's confidence level has certainly leapt beyond anyone's imagination following his trust vote victory, his decision to win at the cost of friendship with the left parties are also likely to have its repercussions.

The compromises made to get the numbers right for the trust vote, meanwhile is also showing. Fact that the JMM leader Shibu Soren openly claimed that he was promised the Chief Ministership of Jharkhand in return for his party's support, and now his withdrawal of support to the Independent-Madhu Koda led government, also is likely to reverberate during the next elections.

Of course, Dr.Manmohan Singh and his cohorts think that all these problems and impediments will take a back seat, once they are able to get the nuclear deal with the United States through. It has come close to it too. The meeting of the NSG later this week and the US Congress next month, they hope should push the deal through. And they hope their drum beaters will then take over, and tom tom the "magnificent" achievement, which should erase from the people's mind all the problems which they have faced or what is today seen as serious challenges.

This is exactly what Atal Behari Vajpayee and his NDA thought in 2004, when it unleashed the "India shining" campaign. And everyone now knows what that self-delusional campaign did to Vajpayee and his NDA. Manmohan Singh therefore would be better off if he takes lessons from it, and instead in the next eight months that he has, try to tackle the real problems, instead of chasing a mirage. No one can take away from his Government some of its real achievements so far. But all it takes for a Government to lose the confidence of the people is to take them for granted. One nuclear deal, like a swallow, does not make a summer. And the summer of 2009 is not going to be an easy summer for Manmohan Singh, the UPA's Prime Minister-in-waiting, even with a nuclear deal in his pocket.

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