O J’s Corner
Prime Minister aspirants too many

Can we afford too many aspirants for Prime Ministership of India? Perhaps some people get inspiration from the episodes under which Deve Gowda, I K Gujral and the like became Prime Ministers. Perhaps Jyoti Basu would have been a PM, had it not been a case of the historical blunder committed by his own party leaders. The party would not even think about a greater leader than E M S Namboodiripad !

Now the latest wishful thinker appears to be Sharad Pawar. His party has decided to probe all avenues to see him through as PM. Arjun Singh, wielding his walking stick, is creating ripples of all sorts, dropping names like Rahul Gandhi etc. Lalu Prasad Yadav would also try to mount the bigger gaddi. His whims have already been proved right for the common man. He says the railways have come out of the red and are thriving.
Nobody knows what happened to the safety fund comprising thousands of crores of rupees. He has mixed up this amount with the general budget of the railways and has the temerity to tell the people that he is a wizard on whom encomiums have been paid by Harvard.

I don’t think Dr Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the like are not aware of the predicament. They are paying a price for cobbling together a coalition government.

Think about the Leftists, particularly the CPM leaders. They would not allow the coalition to move smoothly. When outfits are part of a coalition, rendering support either from within or without, they should take the responsibility for everything. They are forgetting the fundamental duties of the coalition partners.

Mayawati would not stop short of becoming the PM. Everyone is fulminating on price rise, inflation, nuclear issue and what not. They should, in fact, sit together and take measures that would alleviate the hardship of the common man.