It will, apparently, be a farewell dinner. Congress president Sonia Gandhi will host Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan over dinner at 10 Janpath on May 14. Singh will demit office on May 17 and address the nation one last time as PM on May 16, when the results of general elections will be out, after having helmed the Government for 10 long years. Singh has already announced his retirement from active politics.
Sources said that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who had a hectic and long election campaign, could also join the dinner, also seen as a goodwill message amid talks that Sonia and PM did not share a good rapport, at least during the second stint of the UPA.
The PM and Sonia never shared dais during the entire election campaign, which came to an end on Saturday. The relationship between the two was also made an issue by the Opposition and at the fag end of his career Singh couldn’t have asked for a worse ending after the release of the controversial book — Accidental Prime Minister — by none other than his former media adviser Sanjaya Baru.
As Singh prepares to demit the office, he has also written farewell letters to leaders of various countries, including US President Barack Obama, former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel conveying thanks to them recalling how they had worked together all these years. Sources said that Wen has also sent his response to Singh in his hand-written letter expressing his admiration for Singh’s leadership and helping in fostering better relations between the two countries.
Singh is likely to move on May 17 to another sprawling bungalow on Motilal Nehru Place vacating the official residence at 7, Race Course Road. While Sonia and Singh meet at “all is well that ends well” dinner, different sections of party workers are preparing for the next battle — blamegame for the likely loss in the polls. There is also a section in the party which wants the Congress to sit in the Opposition if it does not have respectable numbers to form the Government. However, a senior leader said the party was also aware that things have changed since 1989 when former PM Rajiv Gandhi had chosen to sit in the Opposition despite Congress emerging as the single largest party.
“Rajiv felt that Congress had been rejected completely when in 1989, its tally reduced by more than half of the 415 it secured in 1984. But a tally of 125 or more in the 2014 lS polls from the 206 seats in 2009 should not be seen as a drastic fall in the height of incumbency and many other factors working against the ruling party. We would still not give up for UPA-III and there will be several parties which would come forward to support us,” claimed a leader working on formulas to somehow retain power. “All options are open except the BJP. But it all depends upon the numbers we get and what the BJP gets and the margin between the two of us,” explained the leader.