02-05-2009, 07:35 PM
Political heartbeats
<b>As with all decisions in the Congress, the prime minister's decision to go in for a bypass was a late night one. On 22nd January, after consulting with his doctors Manmohan Singh called Sonia Gandhi </b>and informed her that in view of the coming elections it made sense not to waste time but go in for a surgery immediately. Sonia Gandhi agreed, especially since it was pointed out that unlike Independence Day which was a prime ministerial function the Republic Day was presided over by the president.
Then came the decision on allocation of the prime minister's duties. Although Pranab Mukherjee's work allocation increased, he was not elevated to Number Two. This lead a senior Congressman to joke that while Pranab Babu's perks had increased his basic remained the same. <b>A higher basic would have taken him to the higher Manmohan-Sonia-Rahul bracket. And this the leadership clearly did not want.</b>
More confusion followed when Pranab was not named by name but it was decided that the senior most member of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) would be presiding. So far so good until Pranab had to make a hasty overnight trip to Sri Lanka on the 27th. Who was in charge in his absence? Cabinet colleagues did their political math and came up with different answers. One minister thought that this was finally Arjun Singh's moment while another wondered if the senior most member was Sharad Pawar. Turned out to be AK Antony. But that was a close leadership call.
<b>As with all decisions in the Congress, the prime minister's decision to go in for a bypass was a late night one. On 22nd January, after consulting with his doctors Manmohan Singh called Sonia Gandhi </b>and informed her that in view of the coming elections it made sense not to waste time but go in for a surgery immediately. Sonia Gandhi agreed, especially since it was pointed out that unlike Independence Day which was a prime ministerial function the Republic Day was presided over by the president.
Then came the decision on allocation of the prime minister's duties. Although Pranab Mukherjee's work allocation increased, he was not elevated to Number Two. This lead a senior Congressman to joke that while Pranab Babu's perks had increased his basic remained the same. <b>A higher basic would have taken him to the higher Manmohan-Sonia-Rahul bracket. And this the leadership clearly did not want.</b>
More confusion followed when Pranab was not named by name but it was decided that the senior most member of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) would be presiding. So far so good until Pranab had to make a hasty overnight trip to Sri Lanka on the 27th. Who was in charge in his absence? Cabinet colleagues did their political math and came up with different answers. One minister thought that this was finally Arjun Singh's moment while another wondered if the senior most member was Sharad Pawar. Turned out to be AK Antony. But that was a close leadership call.