Rahul's 'paathshaala' jibe: Good to win applause, but bad politics

During the last 10 years, a belief has slowly crystallised within and outside the Congress that Manmohan Singh is a failed economist, but a successful politician. His tremendous survival skills allowed him to complete two successive full terms in office, something only one other Prime Minister other than Jawaharlal Nehru has been able to achieve. The debate on what kind of governance he provided has been settled with magnitude of Congress’s defeat last May. Manmohan Singh has spent the last year occasionally attending the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha and he would leave quietly, without a word being spoken. He has only ever made news for the wrong reasons– court summons or revelations by some top retired bureaucrats. [caption id=“attachment_2250560” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] Given this, Manmohan Singh’s meeting with his successor Narendra Modi at the Prime Minister’s official residence– 7 Race Course Road– becomes very interesting. Rahul Gandhi’s mocking jibe referring to the meeting between Singh and Modi has added another twist to the meet. Speaking to NSUI’s students wing of Congress, he said, “Manmohan Singhji ne kaha economy down ja rahi. Pradhanmantri (Modi) ne ek ghante ki pathsala li hamare Pradhanmantri ji (Manmohan) se.” (After Manmohan Singh mentioned that the economy is going down, the PM invited him for an hour-long elementary schooling class. Perhaps he tried to understand how the economy runs, I will ask him (Manmohan).” But the issue is not what Rahul thought of Modi’s competence as Prime Minister or Manmohan’s competence as an economist. By making the comment it’s not clear who Rahul was hitting at– Modi or Manmohan. In his new found enthusiasm to grab headlines he has done a disservice to his own party and violated the accepted norms of political courtesy. His remarks also give the impression that despite being a third term MP, Rahul is yet to mature as a serious politician and as a practitioner of parliamentary democracy norms. He recently scored a self goal by targeting Modi government on Amethi mega food park project. Rahul should have been happy that the Prime Minister had opened a direct line of communication with the Congress party. A dialogue between Prime Minister and his predecessor should be appreciated in parliamentary democracy. But Rahul like anyone else seemed surprised over the Modi-Manmohan meet news. He perhaps had no details as to what transpired between them in their one-to-one meeting or why such a meeting happened in the first place. After Congress’s rout in the 2014 parliamentary elections, Manmohan is just a foot note in his party’s organisation structure. Why should Modi then invite him for chai pe charcha? The timing and nature of the meet has given scope for wild speculations. Modi’s opinion on Manmohan and conversely Manmohan’s opinion on Modi is also well known. If Modi thought Manmohan was a mere puppet in Maa-Beta Ki Sarkar then Manmohan believed that, “it will be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as the PM". In a rare press conference held few months ahead of parliamentary elections, Manmohan had said “If by strong prime minister you mean you preside over the massacre of innocents on the streets of Ahmedabad, that is not the kind of strength I would like to have.” Did Modi and Manmohan really talk about state of economy and foreign policy, as was indicated by latter’s office. Nobody has a clue. Rahul said he will talk to Manmohan Singh to know the details of their conversation. It’s now up to Manmohan’s discretion to choose how much to reveal. While a debate is raging on trying to determine who called whom with a request for meeting, the circumstances and timing of the meet make one suspect that it was more than a simple courtesy meet. Rahul may have reasons not to take the meeting between the serving and ex-PM kindly, but political propriety suggests that he appreciates it. A dialogue between the government and the opposition is always healthy in democracy, unless Rahul thinks that the Prime Minister and his colleagues should route all interactions with Congress leaders through him. Both Modi and Manmohan knew that their meeting would spark a lot of media interest and speculation in political circles. They probably would have discussed what should be told to people at large about the meeting. Both Modi, who tweeted and PIB, issued an official statement about the meeting, without giving any details as to why this summit meeting was held. Senior BJP leaders are also as clueless as anyone else. Rahul Gandhi has given the official line to the Congress but then the Congress Vice President too should learn a lesson in political propriety. One of the key failures of the UPA regime was a near total breakdown of communication between the ruling Congress and Opposition BJP.