New Delhi, December 19, 2007
Last evening, to the sound of table-thumping and heavy applause, the Congress Parliamentary Party elected its new leader in Parliament. It was a unanimous decision. Nobody challenged the candidature of the next prime minister proposed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Parliament's Central Hall broke into thunderous clapping and some members even whistled as the new prime minister, Narendra Modi, stood up to make his acceptance speech.
"Never in India's history has any party obtained more than 450 Lok Sabha seats," Modi said. "The credit for our spectacular victory goes entirely to Soniaji!" After the applause died down he reminded his audience, "Had it not been her vision to update Gandhian values and make them relevant to the contemporary world, this magnificent mandate would have eluded us."
Later, the outgoing PM, Dr Manmohan Singh, congratulated his successor. He said he would always watch with interest the progress of his party from a secluded resort 1,000 feet above Shimla where he would be working on his new book, Politics Made Easy.
There was intense speculation in Central Hall about the names of the two senior ministers expected to be sworn in along with the prime minister at Rashtrapati Bhawan tomorrow. Senior leader Narayan Rane is certain to be one of them. Other names discussed include Raj Thackeray and Sanjay Nirupam. Indeed, Rane was till some time ago himself the frontrunner for the PM's post because he was senior to Modi in the party. But Modi, as the outstanding Gandhian, eventually won the post. Modi, it may be recalled, rebuilt Gandhinagar.
Gandhian values got a huge boost after Sonia Gandhi succeeded in resolving the differences between Modi and Praveen Togadia. These two leaders cooperated wonderfully in promoting Gandhian thought across the entire nation. As head of the Congress Seva Dal, Mr Togadia streamlined and modernised the organisation to make it a lean, mean machine. "Gandhiji carried a lathi for protection," Togadia said. "But times have changed. Now we need trishuls and daggers!"
With his formidable organisational skills, Mr Modi distributed trishuls in every district of India. Mr Togadia declined entry into government because he preferred to strengthen the organisation. He is determined to obliterate the Opposition. Meanwhile, leaders of the five main Opposition parties, BJP (Jaitley), BJP (Uma), BJP (Sushma), BJP (Venkaiah) and BJP (Mahajan) agreed to meet and discuss Opposition unity.
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)
