Race for the President

Amidst all kinds of hypes and hoopla for the race of next President of India, many names those are doing rounds in political consultations among various parties maybe a deliberate part of a larger facade that UPA has conscientiously floated in public to obfuscate the real winner for this race, which anyway Sonia Gandhi, the President of UPA, will unfold it as a last minute surprise. Whether the media is consciously meditating over any viable name, be it Pranab Mukherjee or Hamid Ansari, the Congress party will certainly repeat it tricks as it did cunningly last time.

With growing factions among NDA allies, the BJP has already lost its golden chance to gather unanimous consensus for giving another opportunity to our ex-President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam when SP was even eager to support an apolitical person like Dr Kalam. It's now obvious that NDA has hardly any major role to play in this Presidential election other than supporting the candidate to be finalized by the Congress party towards the end of this month. Till then all types of media hypes around this will only buttress UPA's secret plan.

Well, as Sonia Gandhi has already started consultations with leaders of UPA's major allies, it seems she is garnering absolute consensus on her decisions, not on the candidatures for the poll. And the interesting part of this consultation process is that once the magic mark is achieved and decisions of various regional party leaders are converged to a potent winning strategy, Ms Gandhi will pull out the final pigeon from her sleeve.

The chances are that neither Pranab Mukherjee nor Hamid Ansari would be the final choice of Sonia Gandhi. They are just the decoy candidates. So, who is that luckiest one? It's a million dollar question. Given the current political situations, Pranab Mukherjee is the most sought-after politician in UPA who's not only an astute trouble-shooter, but also he is equally bankable in all seasons.

Remember, Pranab Mukherjee has some higher aspirations in politics and that's only possible before 2014 general elections. How is that feasible then when Dr Manmohan Singh has held the highest position? So it won't be very surprising that when Sonia Gandhi would ask Dr Manmohan Singh to move to the Rashtrapati Bhawan and bless Pranab Mukherjee with the dream job of his life. And both these decisions of Sonia Gandhi will act as a game changer for UPA's success in 2014 elections. Till then all are speculations.