Calamities as Prime Ministerial Candidates

I am so disappointed. I can remember all the elections since the Emergency vividly. Never has an election been so devoid of issues, characters like this one.

The world is in the middle of a recession/depression. But none of the parties have come up with an alternate economic model for the country.

Let us look at the Prime Ministerial Candidates:

Congress - Manmohan Singh - A decent man. The problem with him is that he is more of a bureaucrat than a politician. And in todays India, what one needs is not just a politician, but a visionary and a statesman, who has a plan for the next 25 years. He lacks the political savyy and is obsessed with USA, which I am sure can be compared to Nehrus mislaid faith with Chinese. It is a sorry state of affairs that Dr.Singh is not contesting the Parliament elections and has taken the Rajya Sabha route. A PM who is not elected directly by the people loses his moral right. And he is not even respected in his party. A stringed puppet, sometimes I pity the poor man. But good men dont make great Prime Ministers. And he is 76 plus having undergone 2 multiple bypass.

BJP - L K Advani - I think BJP missed a trick in not projecting Narendra Modi as PM. I know it would have polarised the political arena, but Modi is in his late 50s, and a bloody good administrator. He has made a sea change in Gujarath and would have been tough on terror. Coming back to Advani, he is 80 plus, no longer commands respect even in his party. He cannot enthuse the young generation. He was not a great success as Home Minister under Vajpayee, and clearly lacks the vision and charisma of Vajpayee. If he is elected, he will be 86 when the term completes. Not a good prognosis.

BSP - Mayawati - She is the dark horse. If she wins 40 seats in UP, and if the third front gets more than 16o seats, she really can dicate terms. But she has made far too many enemies in the political field and others may not back her. She is an unmitigated disaster as an administrator in UP. Though a Dalit becoming the PM will strengthen our Social structure, I am afraid Mayawati may have to wait for another 5 years.

Then there are the PM wannabees - Pawar, Jayalalitha, Deve Gowda, Laloo, Mulayam and every other politician who is worth one bit in todays world. It hardly matters who amongst them becomes the PM (if at all), for they are not likely to last more than one year, since they lack the numbers individually to rule for 5 years. One of them might become an accidental PM, like Gujral, Chandrasekhar and Deve Gowda, but will face the same fate as them.

Is it not a tragedy that a country of 1.1 billion people has to choose from amongst the above calamities their Prime Minister?