The dual power centre arrangement suits the Nehru-Gandhi family perfectly. It allows the family to control the reins of the Government and hold Manmohan Singh answerable for the blunders
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh is apparently the one-man bulldozer of his party. If you ignore the criticism that he opens his mouth far too many times, and that every time he does so he ends up putting his foot in this mouth, the only other explanation for his going against the official line of the party while being its general secretary is that he is being used by the only leader in his party who counts as a sounding board for new initiatives.
That is why soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hinted that he himself was not averse to seeking a third term, Mr Digvijaya Singh made clear that the dual power centre arrangement was no longer acceptable and that it was necessary for Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to take over in 2014.
Then the ‘Yuvraj’ himself spoke. Addressing the annual general body meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Gandhi dismissed the question about his taking over as “irrelevant”. At the same time he described his agenda as one of decentralisation and one that would include “giving the poor a voice that would be listened to”.
The only interpretation that explains Mr Gandhi’s seeming unconcern for the top job of the country (just in case the Congress is voted back) is that for him, the office of the Prime Minister is already his by family tradition and Congress genuflection before the family (he did not fail to highlight his political DNA).
We must then believe that Mr Digvijaya Singh is right in his assessments. The dual power centre practice will be buried after May 2014 and, if the Congress forms the Government, it will have only one leader.
However, the party immediately faced Mr Manmohan Singh’s latest statement that the question of who would be Prime Minister post-2014 was a “hypothetical” one. Of course, the Prime Minister didn’t rule it out altogether; after all, only a week back he had hinted that he would not be averse to taking up the top job again. So, the Congress spokesman turned the whole argument upside down, and said that the party was happy with the dual power centre arrangement.
The question here is: Having first encouraged Mr Digvijaya Singh to assert that the dual power centre is not a good arrangement, why did the party later take a round-aboutIJ One reason could be that this assertion was embarrassing for the Prime Minister. The lok Sabha election is another 12 months away at the most, and Mr Manmohan Singh has insisted that his battered outfit will survive its full time. If the party were to distance itself from the current dual power centre arrangement at this point, it would erode whatever little authority the Prime Minister wields and reduce him to the position of a glorified babu.
But the story doesn’t end here. The Prime Minister himself added another twist to the tale when he brought out the red carpet for Mr Gandhi and said that the young leader is welcome to take over. But again the key question remains: Why is the Congress going through all these round-robin argumentsIJ
The present dual power centre arrangement, wherein the Congress president has all the power and the Prime Minister takes the rap for the failures of the Government, is widely criticised. As Mr Arun Jaitley, leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said at the CII event, the elected head of the Government must have the last word but as of now, the Prime Minister has to follow the instructions of his party president.
For example, the Prime Minster agrees that fiscal deficit has to be controlled, but he still has to support Ms Sonia Gandhi’s pet programme of food entitlement that, if implemented, would add another Rs1 lakh crore to the fiscal deficit — irrespective of how hard Union Minister for Finance P Chidambaram may try to fudge the figures, as he did in his Budget speech. Mr Chidambaram has only shown Rs10,000 crore as the additional liability and he even goes to major financial capitals of the world quoting the presumed reduction of fiscal deficit to below five per cent of GDP, but most analysts have seen through his bluster and facade.
Reading between the lines, there may in fact be a reason behind Mr Gandhi’s ignoring the crown that is being offered to him — while the Prime Minister says that he is not averse to wearing it again, even as he gushingly welcomes the Congress vice president to take over the reins of the country. And all this, while the Congress itself insists that the dual power centre arrangement is “ideal for the future”.
Clearly, the Congress’s first family has begun to like this dual power centre arrangement and would like to continue with it for one more term at least. The Sonia-Rahul team could then keep the Prime Minister on its leash and let him bear all the responsibility while the two continue to enjoy all the power.
In this context, it is no wonder then that the mother-son duo chose a political non-entity like Mr Manmohan Singh, who does not even have a lok Sabha constituency after nine years in power, to be Prime Minister. Mr Manmohan Singh has no political base and no oratorical skills to attract the masses. He does not pose any political threat, and under this cover, Mr Gandhi could forever preach to the poor and promise to make their voice count.
Back in 2010, Mr Gandhi showed up in Odisha as the sipahi of the State’s tribal population; the very next day the then Union Minister for Forests and Environment rejected, as per the demands of misled tribals, the application of Vedanta industries to mine bauxite from that area.
This is just one example of how Mr Gandhi likes to project himself as the champion of the poor, while giving them enough sops like food entitlement, jobs without work and heavy compensation for their land that industry needs — and then of course blame the Government for the ills these populist policies lead to.
The dual power centre arrangement is the one formula that the Congress has to remain in power. As for Mr Manmohan Singh, he can serve as the puppet Prime Minister for a while longer; eventually he will be replaced by another joker in the pack while Mr Gandhi continues to deal with the trump.