Congress leaders were triumphant after results of the Gujarat assembly elections were announced. Senior leader P. Chidambaram said in virtually as many words that Congress had won because it had restricted Modi and BJP to barely 115 out of 182 seats. For Modi fans, the script was entirely different. His third successive election victory made him a strong contender to be the BJP candidate for Prime Minister. In Jaipur recently, nervous Congressmen heaved a sigh of relief and shed tears of joy when Rahul Baba finally agreed to lead the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Since then, we have seen an overdose of articles and columns comparing the two as potential prime ministers. If you go by excitable media reports, 2014 could well be an American Presidential style election where voters will have to choose between Modi Bhai and Rahul Baba.
But I most humbly disagree. If you look deep and hard, India has literally a wild variety of choices when it comes to who should be the Prime Minister. Come on, if Deve Gowda, the late I. K. Gujral and Manmohan Singh can become Prime Minister, surely almost anybody can. And I am not talking about the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Jayalalitha as strong contenders. In the true spirit of democracy, I cast my net wide and far and came up with a very rich catch of choices. Here is a not so comprehensive list of gifted, talented, visionary and messianic Indians who have superb qualifications to be the next Prime Minister of India:
Asaram Bapu: Who better than this fountain of Vedic Wisdom and champion of gender equality and female empowerment. I am not so sure about what his domestic and economic policy agenda would be. But I am absolutely convinced this great man will do a superb job of making all our borders safe and secure. You see, almost all his female devotees will be dispatched to our borders. Dancing to the tunes of devotional songs, they will all keep asking real and alleged enemies to treat them like sisters. The Pakistani soldiers will be so inspired that they will start beheading themselves. The Chinese would be so shell shocked that they would promptly give up all claims on Tibet. And there will commence a citizen movement in Bangladesh that will demand the return of all illegal migrants from India. Each cabinet meeting will be a Satsang where Asaram Babu will drop further pearls of wisdom.
Akbaruddin Owaisi: This mind blowing orator and contender for the Nobel Peace Prize will firmly have a simple domestic agenda. His first decision as Prime Minister will be to declare the birth anniversary of the last Nizam of Hyderabad as a national holiday. His second decision would be even more historic. He will decree that all police stations in India be shut down for 15 minutes once every week. That will enable the 25 crore Muslims of India to show the 100 crore Hindus of India who the real Boss is. Even as Hindus and Muslims indulge in a new national pastime and sport called This Week in Riots, the new age Nizam will go to London as a medical tourist. This will greatly improve relations between the former Imperial Power and the new Caliphate. Owaisi will also announce a weekly award worth Rs.100 million for a slogan writing contest where you will be encouraged to denigrate Hinduism. Hordes of media celebrities and secular activists and academicians will literally kill each other to become participants.
Poonam Pandey: This new Light of Asia will bring about revolutionary and unthinkable changes in India and perhaps even in the world at the drop of a strap. You see, every time Hafiz Saeed makes a menacing threat against India, this leader will make an even more menacing threat. She will threaten to “reveal all” to the world and expose the duplicity of the Pakistani state. Every time China says it must have Arunachal Pradesh, this icon will promise to “bare all” if China persists with its perfidy. And each time America disappoints India by not sentencing the likes of David Headley to death, she will summon an emergency cabinet meeting in the showers. The agenda, of course, would be to “expose it all” for the world to see. Poonam Pandey will also create history by leading the first ever all woman government. Sunny Leone would be our permanent representative to the United Nations. Sherlyn Chopra would be our Ambassador to the United States. Rakhi Sawant would be the Union Minister of Home and Mallika Sherawat would be the Union Minister for Health and Education. All of them will regularly tie Rakhi to Asaram Bapu. You know which Rakhi I am talking about.
N. Srinivasan: This visionary and selfless leader will take so many bold steps that the Indian economy will grow bigger than that of China within a decade. And his imprint would be stamped both across domestic and foreign policy frontiers. To begin with, he will organize something called the ICL – Indian Caste League. Upper caste and OBC chieftains and leaders of Khap Panchayats would be allowed to bid for teams. The floor price for the auction would be one billion American dollars. In each match, the man of the match would be the one who kills the most lower castes, Dalits and tribes within a stipulated time period. The winning team, of course, would be the one with the best kill record. Bihar, Haryana and Maharashtra would be the natural contenders to play host for the finals. There will be one other condition: all teams have to sign a bond that will make Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri the permanent commentators. Srinivasan will implement equally revolutionary policies in the foreign policy and defence sectors. He will organize an open auction of the Indian armed forces at a glittering event in Dubai. Indian companies will not be allowed to participate. Only multinationals, particularly those from China, will do so and the event would be telecast live on all channels of the Star Network. This franchise will be called IDL – India Defence League. There will be a third franchise called ISL – India Suicide League. In this, bidders will be encouraged to push more and more farmers to commit suicide. You must have guessed by now that Sharad Pawar would be the Chief Mentor of this franchise.
Rohit Shetty: Bollywood is the heartbeat of India and is capable of throwing up some sterling candidates for the post of Prime Minister. I can think of the duo of Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi who would make poetry recitation mandatory in cabinet meetings. I can think of Mahesh Bhatt who would offer valuable advice to Barack Obama even as he is shooting his next soft porn venture. But the vote actually goes to Rohit Shetty. When he is Prime Minister, he will release yet another sequel of Golmal every time India faces a crisis – either domestic or foreign.
Arnab Goswami: This is a simple and straightforward choice to vote for. This fearless leader has already declared war so many times on Pakistan, China, America and sundry others that wars would become history when he takes over. As a television anchor, he has bamboozled panelists and mesmerized Indians by repeating just one sentence tirelessly and endlessly: The nation demands an answer. When he becomes Prime Minister, he will change his daily chant which will become: I demand an answer from the nation.
I am sure fellow Indians have even better suggestions and choices. Please do email and SMS your valuable suggestions. India needs you.
