What kind of a prime minister do we want in 2019?

Very soon the nation will decide who the next prime minister should be: Narendra Modi or ‘Someone Else’?

The fact, however, is that the voter will never be informed who that ‘Someone Else’ is before the election results come in – if Modi is defeated, that is.

If indeed that happens, the new dispensation will spring a surprise on the voter in the form of someone (whom many voters might not have voted for to begin with had they known who the anti-Modi lobby’s PM nominee is before the elections) who emerges as the ‘consensus’ candidate.

Instead, the voter is dismissively notified that this group has many leaders anyone of whom can be the prime minister. Dismissively, as if the PM’s office is something just about anyone can dignify.
Despite boasting of a ‘galaxy of leaders’, I, the voter, will never be given that one name before I cast my ballot. After all, these leaders are jostling for space to elbow out their nearest ally-cum-rival as each one wants to be the PM.

The voter is told, ‘First we have to defeat the BJP, then we will sit and pick the PM. What that person will be is not important’. What is actually being said is, ‘First we defeat the BJP, then we will fight amongst ourselves to see who bags the top job. We will finally choose someone pliable and non-threatening’.

For long, it has been fashionable to take the voters for a ride. When you have a hodge-podge government, with several leaders who would have had to reluctantly give up their dream of occupying the PM’s chair, it is obvious it would be wobbly: those who are forced to drop their dream will want their pound of flesh. Or else…

Indian history is replete with governments being pulled down by supporters the moment the political scenario changes in their favour.

And, as the former prime minister lamented, ‘Compromises have to be made in a coalition’: a euphemism to indicate one has to look the other way even while the country is being looted.

So what kind of a prime minister do Indians want?

• One whose party ruled the nation for decades but was so busy promoting personal glorification and corruption that it took 60 years for India to attain the progress it should have achieved in merely 30?

• One who is out on bail for alleged financial irregularities but keeps throwing muck – plus expletives and lies – at honest functionaries to divert people’s attention?

• Or one who produces questionable audio clips, purportedly to establish corruption in the Rafale deal, and wants to play them in Parliament but is scared of authenticating them?

• One who is terrified at the thought of letting the young brigade in his party prosper and prefers the ‘old guard’, who have been slaves of the dynasty for so long they have forgotten how to be independent?

• One who is prompted and spoon-fed by sycophants on what to reply when asked the simplest of questions?

• One whose father dismissed the massacre of thousands of members of a community as an ‘understandable reaction’ to the killing of a former prime minister?

• One who follows the ideology of a lady who afflicted the most horrendous wound on the soul of this democracy and strangled all forms of freedom?

• One whose father genuflected before patriarchy to snatch away the rights of the women of the minority community – which he now pretends to fight for?

• One who insists that holding press conferences is the only way a prime minister should lead the country?

• Or one whose parent has been named by a fraudster in a shady aviation deal?

• Or one who wholeheartedly encourages the harming of political opponents and terrorizes them to such an extent that many electoral seats go uncontested?

• One who clearly shows naked favouritism in the garb of being secular and has the interest of a limited geographical region at heart?

• One whose heart bleeds for illegal immigrants and some chosen communities at the cost of the majority?

• One who, in true Mughal ruler style, wrested control of the party his father built after toppling him – and yet continues to beat his chest saying he is not after power?

• One whose followers garland her with currency notes and is richer than God despite having no known sources of income other than a public representative’s salary, and ostensibly professes to fight corruption and uphold secularism?

• One who nurtures deep-rooted hatred for the upper castes and yet calls oneself ‘inclusive’?
  One who swears by the Marxist doctrine but holds forth on democracy?

• One who develops amnesia when it comes to atrocities perpetrated on the majority community?
  Or one who was brought up on the money garnered through corruption for which his father has been convicted and languishes in jail?

• Or one who has little interest in the growth, prosperity and well-being of the nation, and only craves for power so that he/she can begin to loot the country and fill personal coffers again: something that has been put an end to in the last five years?

The choice is in the hands of the voters: whether India deserves a stable, non-corrupt and decisive government or one that falls to its knees to appease a coalition partner and ‘compromises’ with everything virtuous only to stick to power.

So be careful when you cast that priceless vote. One wrong move could mean being condemned to a fate that the nation experienced for the last several decades: corruption, poverty, instability, lies, deceit, misinformation, opportunism and more.