Sonia now faces one of those moments in a leader’s life when the choice is between statesmanship and cynical politicking. Some in her party are so sure of not winning, or even contesting another election that they would rather stretch this term into its last day, the party and the country be damned. These political Geoffrey Boycotts would happily run out a partner — even their captain — if that helps them lengthen their innings. Many of the Congress stalwarts (unlike Sonia and Rahul) haven’t won an election for decades and have neither any intention of contesting, nor any hope of winning another. Many are simply too old, even by their party’s chilled geriatric standards, to expect another term even if the party returns to power. For them, this is a desperate quest for a few last months in power.

This is a call Sonia has to take, and indications are that she is going the right way. While both will have their fans and critics, nobody can dispute that Narasimha Rao and Sonia are very different as individuals, politicians and leaders. Also, that the Sonia-Manmohan equation is qualitatively very different from that between Rao and Manmohan. Rao merely saw Manmohan as a brilliant economist, an honest, efficient civil servant who could be used in a particular role in an apolitical manner for some time. Sonia does not, and cannot, see Manmohan Singh the same way. The prime minister of India is not an apolitical job. And you cannot appoint somebody your prime minister and then tell him, and the nation, particularly the voters, that he is not a full prime minister. That he is apolitical, a caretaker, a kind of PM-lite. She is also conscious of the fact that the same “apolitical” man actually took the political call of his life when he accepted the prime ministership that she had decided not to take, that she could not have trusted any of her other partymen with, even as Mani Shankar Aiyar, Arjun Singh and Renuka Chaudhary wept. Melodrama and flamboyance are not his style, so he won’t resign in a huff, embarrass Sonia and rock his party. And she is not about to hang him out to dry by himself merely on the charge of being apolitical.

... contd.