Do or dare

Congress rejects all of Mamatas names,can it now call her bluff?

After Mamata Banerjee outed Sonia Gandhis presidential candidates and took the novel step of nominating a serving prime minister for the post,the focus of the presidential election has shifted from Rashtrapati Bhavan to the UPA. The alliance has been accused of paralysis for months and now it has been betrayed and insulted by its own ally. Banerjee has given a dramatic display of her streetfighting skills but she may have overplayed her hand. This is the first time that the UPA has bestirred itself and if it calls her bluff by insisting on its candidate and daring her to vote against him,she may emerge diminished from the encounter. What looked like a below-the-belt masterstroke to take control of the polity could then come undone if its met with resolve. But,of course,all this is easier said than done,given the atrocious ally management the Congress is guilty of. No surprise,therefore,that its two key allies secure in their formidable bastions in Kolkata and Lucknow have pushed the Congress to the brink and,in the process,put a huge question mark on its durability.

Banerjee could end up achieving the opposite of what she had intended,helping the Congress make up its mind and zero in on Pranab Mukherjee. The Congress has rejected her choice of Manmohan Singh as president the only fact in a whirlwind of straws and chaff. There is some alarm at the volume of chaff,the number of names that have already been thrown up,and tense speculation about dark horses who champ at the bit in their stalls. However,a wide diversity of candidates is expected and welcome given the variegated electoral college. The uncertainty will surely end as soon as the Congress announces its candidate. It may be able to get its nominee in Rashtrapati Bhavan by reaching out to Mulayam not so easy or going back to the Left very difficult,or trying to keep both its allies SP and TMC in good humour very,very difficult,if not impossible.

What shape the UPA will be in,after the presidential elections,will decide how effective it will be. The economy is in a mess,unfinished business is piling up,unreliable allies new and old will be waiting to begin the next round of political brinkmanship.