A sudden hush

The paradox of the Indian prime ministership is the fact that theres never a dearth of contenders for the post of head of government. Yet,with the odd exception,the Indian prime ministerial persona has been low-key. Even a few weeks before elections began,the battleground seemed too chaotic a real instance of democracy on an epic scale. Apart from the incumbent Manmohan Singh,never too forthcoming about his own achievements,and his main rival L.K. Advani who challenged him to a head-to-head debate before the polls began,there was a veritable battalion of prospective candidates for the PMs post Sharad Pawar,Mayawati,Jayalalithaa,Deve Gowda,even Lalu Prasad and his newfound buddy Ram Vilas Paswan. In fact,the Third and Fourth Fronts alone hosted a squad of them. Then there was the enigma of Rahul Gandhis prospects in the background,himself repeating Not now in the foreground.

Why then does it appear now with the third phase of polling just concluded that the pitch of the Me too brigade is falling? Where is the rhetoric of self-justification and self-promotion that so dominated the campaign in the pre-polling stages? Sharad Pawar doesnt seem to have the paramount cause of a PM from Maharashtra in mind any more,and memorialising Mayawati is rather quiet. The rhetoric has mellowed and the tone softened across parties and among contenders in the third and fourth formations. In an interview to this paper,former PM Deve Gowda has said not only that there are many contenders for PM but also that theres a difference between contesting polls and becoming PM,implying thus that this is a moment of magnanimity and technicality a moment when ones own prime ministerial cause can be subsumed under larger causes.

Perhaps Gowdas words are the strongest hint at what explains this kind of hush and apparent change of heart. Where the prime ministerial hopefuls are now is not where they were before April 16. The race is inching towards its end; closer to the finishing post,some of them are feeling the heat. In these late stages,the big BJP-Congress fights are nearly over,the battalion of pretenders have realised its time to live up to ones vows or battle cry. Thus it seems now that the many PM-aspirants are strategically distancing themselves from their own big words at the start,and testing the waters again as the tank fills in.