16 February 2013, 11:16 AM IST
The line-up for the Great 2014 Prime Ministerial Race has been formed, and the two odds-on favourites - one of whom is expected to romp home past the winning post - are Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi - popularly known among his admirers as NaMo - and Rahul Gandhi, who is sometimes described as the unofficial mascot of the Congress party. Barring an upset staged by dark horses such as Samajwadi Party's strongman, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has long nursed prime ministerial ambitions, and his arch adversary in UP, the formidable BSP leader, Mayawati, it's going to be Rahul or NaMo right down to the wire.
The savvy punter might find it difficult to choose on whom to put his money between the two. Both of the top two contenders have their advantages and their handicaps. Thanks to his Vibrant Gujarat investment melas and other initiatives, NaMo is hailed by many, and not just those who belong to his state, as being the most business-friendly CM in the country. Though sceptics claim that the quantum of investment the CM has managed to attract to Gujarat is highly inflated, few question his administrative and organisational skills.
Regrettably for him, it is this same skill-set which his critics allege helped better to organise the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, turning an administrative advantage into a sectarian setback. On the other hand - or, rather, the other horse - thanks to his relative youthfulness, Rahul Gandhi can claim exemption from the Congress stigma of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and elsewhere. While his plausibly secular credentials might give him an edge over his main rival, Rahul baba's main handicap is his lack of a credible track record in the political field, thoroughbred though he may be from the Congress stable with his impeccable dynastic pedigree.
So who's to be the next PM: NaMo or Rahul, the experienced warhorse or the untried and untested yearling? Faced with this either/or choice, the punter might well find himself in a dilemma of whom to back. But what if this either/or choice were to be made into a both/and option? Suppose that instead of betting on one PM and rejecting the other, we could bet on two PMs, who would take it in turns to occupy the chair.
A precedent for such an arrangement was set when the darling of the dalits, BSP's Mayawati, rode merry-go-round with Kalyan Singh of the BJP as CM of UP, each doing a six-month tenure in rotation. If we can have rotational CMs why not rotational PMs? This would make India's democracy even more lively and unpredictable than it already is. A rotational Congress PM could bring in legislation - say FDI in retail - which the BJP PM could reverse when his turn came to take over the reins. Parliament would have to work overtime to first pass and then chuck out a whole lot of laws.
Instead of competing against each other, Rahul and NaMo should join up to occupy a gaddi - or to keep to the horseracing analogy, a saddle - made for two. And what should such a combine be called? Why, RaMo of course - which in Gujarati could be translated as "Let's play".
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