The diagnosis of the UPA’s chronic illness since the 2009 polls has been markedly conventional. Everybody agrees that prime minister Manmohan Singh has messed up big-time, and that there has got to be a change at the top sooner not later, if “young” Rahul Gandhi‘s hopes are not to be dashed.
As for the aspirants, the usual names do the rounds: finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the senior most leader in the party, whom the family doesn’t trust, home minister P. Chidambaram, whom the party can doesn’t trust, and neither of whom trust each other.
But do either Mukherjee or Chidambaram or anybody else in the party at the moment have in it in them to pull the Congrfess out of the hole and give it a push? In the Bombay newspaper DNA, editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha challenges the conventional wisdom, by suggesting that Sonia Gandhi should disregard her “moral voice” she first heard in 2004 with 2014 in mind:
“Perhaps the only thing left to be done that would undoubtedly shake everyone up and energise the government is for Congress President Sonia Gandhi to take over from Dr Manmohan Singh.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?
“She is, after all, head of the dominant party of the UPA. If any of the allies threaten to walk out, she can walk them straight into jail. Imagine: if she throws Sharad Pawar in jail, she’ll become the Queen of Anti-Corruption (after all, Anna Hazare earned his crusading credentials by opposing Pawar).
“Rahul Gandhi won’t evade ministerial responsibilities for he’ll want to help his mother steer the ship of government through the choppy waters of global recession. Sonia at the helm of government will boost the Congress’s chances in UP. And she can smoothly pass the baton to Rahul in 2014.
“So, Soniaji, we beg you: rid us of this prime minister and instead of replacing him with one of the usual suspects, take matters into your own hands (before Sharad Pawar takes matters into his). After all, you have little to lose, and everything to gain.”
Read the full article: Time for Sonia Gandhi to become PM?
churumuri 
Shhh.. You folks… Lest it give her an idea!
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Sonia PM? First she need to get qualify legally means she has to surrender Italian passport n citizenship, then will see else She will be two days PM till SC cancels her !!
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of Italy
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The day the Italian mafia queen becomes PM, I am emigrating. We have over a billion people here, and we need this so-and-so with dishonourable motives and questionable character to run our country? This woman, whose sole interest is in how many dollars or Swiss francs their family can accumulate, not including her late husband’s $2.5 billion account in Switzerland?
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wow!! you guys have refined the chore of bucket holding to an art.
queen of anti-corruption. rofl!!! orwell would be proud.
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Pingback: Is it time for Sonia Gandhi to be prime minister? – Churumuri | MYSOUTHDIVA
Sonia Gandhi not interested to become prime minister. Her ambition is Rahul Gandhi became the prime minister.Rahul Gandhi. don’t want to take responsibility.There is tussle between mother and son.Iam doubtful can Rahul carryout responsibility of the post?.He is immature,childish.India is vast country and have thousand problem.
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Looks like the Chief Editor of DNA is in line to receive a Padmi Shri or even Padma Bhushan
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Somehow, elections has become the beall and endall in India – for politicians as well as media. Sad that editors and journalists are also only interested in electioneering – suggesting that sonia should become prime minister with an eye on 2014. It is time these people say who should become PM with an eye on better governance.
Today’s ET has a quote by yashwant sinha that if he is FM again, he would not try subsidy reforms. WHy? because that caused them election loss. Will someone in India say that they will “do something – damn elections!!”
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none of the current members of gandhi family can ever be PMs according to the constitution…this is article is a form of bucket(hande – the large vessel)giri
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She could give it a shot, if she has the right set of advisors.
But the foreigner label won’t come off so easily. As though it is ok to be bad if you’re Indian origin :D
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“Everybody agrees that prime minister Manmohan Singh has messed up big-time, and that there has got to be a change at the top sooner not later, if “young” Rahul Gandhi‘s hopes are not to be dashed.’
Everybody? All 121+ crore blighters in this benighted land in which once flowed rivers of milk and honey? How this astonishing fact has been established? Survey of every household, hut, cave and Maoist hideout?
Or is this similar to the tamasha that goes on in Times Now where that sage Arnab keeps screaming ‘Nation needs answer’ for why black ticket rates for matinee are skyrocketing?
Why such super simplifications and over generalizations?
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And what options do you cheddis have to offer?
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She can but will her inner voice let her.
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For God sake,dont speak or think of Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi to be future prime minister or C.E.O.of India. We can not efford to hand over our country any more to any such incompetant & undeserving & JEE HAZOOR including Dr.M.M.S.
GOD SAVE INDIA & GIVE SENSE OF SELF RESPECT & PATRIOTISM TO ALL CONGRESS MEN & WOMEN.
Suneel
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@AG,
Come on man, you know the answer. Modi :D
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To reject Smt. Sonia Gandhi a foreigner is a cruel form of bigotry. She is as Indian as Nikki Haley is American or Ben Kingsley or Lakshmi Mittal are British.
Bigotry has no place in India’s inclusive culture. “Ayam nijaha paroveti gaNanaa laghuchetasaam/Udaaracharitaanaam tu vasudaiva kutumbakam” (“That one is mine and the other is another’s is a thought of narrow minds. For those with evolved minds, the world is a family”)
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KH,
I was asking about prime minister of India, not Gujarat.
Surely you are joking if you say that the murderer will be accepted outside of his state for any post, let alone prime minister.
For all your talk of Sonia being a foreigner, Modi would be a bigger foreigner to a non-Gujarati (RSS, VHP, xyz sena card holders excluded)
And what is the second choice – Bal Thackeray?
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@AG,
bit over the top isn’t it.. murderer? Its time to move on from that my friend.
Nitish is well known in the cow belt, he could also be ok.
If you still want to push for the Gandhi family, heck even our Kumaranna is better than them, atleast he is honestly corrupt :)
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Mysore Peshwa,
Excellently put. On a flippant note, somebody has fed a wrong interpretation of that saying to Yeddappa.
His interpretation is ‘This is mine and the others’ is also mine. Mine is also mine. My family is the world’.
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She is not interested in this job. She knows she is not capable.
All the others who are flinging wild charges are just rumour mongers.
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Mysore Peshva,
You are quoting this sloka from panchatantra out of context. Please read the context in which it was quoted…thanks
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Mysore Peshva,
Here is the link which throws more light on Vasudaiva Kutumbakam..
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/the-hoax-called-vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-1-hitopadesha/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog
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stupid question, why be a PM when you can enjoy unbridled power without accountability nor responsibility!
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She is not interested in this as she already has a higher job. The PM ship would mean a demotion and a lot of actual work. That is better suited for her minions.
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Mysore Peshwa, Incidentally “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” is now the motto of the globalised indians who want to erase the barriers, for example why fight as India and Pakistan ? What is the difference between Indians and Italians as people ? It all makes sense when spoken where the mood is right, example is the speech at Murthy’s book launch in Singapore http://tinyurl.com/3gl6qfq it is fine but such a speech will not go down well in an audience of Kargill war vidows ! Hence the use of this sloka “as a hoax” is noted by this blogger http://indianrealist.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/the-hoax-of-vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-the-whole-world-is-one-family/
But I would like to tell mounaprasad that it is really from Maha Upanishad VI-72-73(a). ‘For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family. Resort to the status free from all considerations of empirical life, beyond old age and death, who are all mental constructions are extinguished and where no attachments finds lodgement’. Refer http://www.scribd.com/doc/9188901/Maha-Upanishad
But thankfully a country is not run by what is in the Upanishad, but by what is in the constitution !
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*SS*
hehe, that was good!
*mounaprasad*
sir, i was not referring to the panchatantra for my quote to be out of context. please see *uppauppa’s* response!
*uppauppa*
sir, sometimes i wonder if the constitution, which has no spiritual base in an india that, in swami vivekananda’s words, is a spiritual land where, “like its mighty rivers, spiritual aspirations have arisen and joined their strength,” is even capable of serving our people any better than the upanishads. i see a lack of connect of indians with their constitution, as masterly as that document is. by its lack of roots in the profound, inclusive vedic traditions, india’s constitution may have unfortunately turned into a lameduck document open to manipulation by selfish politicians. the evidence of the decay is all around us, would you not agree?
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@Mysore Peshwa
Even then you are absolutely wrong. Even Mahopanishada does not **recommend** vasudhaiva kutumbakam as a policy. It simply says that for ***those saints who are in bramhi sthiti***, this sentiment of vasudhaiva kutumbakam is simply a natural lakshana. In other words, VK is a nature of those in bramhi sthiti, not a policy for you and me. Read the details of the back ground in mahopanishada at that blog referred earlier, as looks like you did not even bother to read. Do read this 3rd part that treats the VK in mahopanishada:
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/the-hoax-called-vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-3/
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*justone*
dear sir, in criticizing my comment, you seem to have engaged in a straw man fallacy.
you assumed it to be a recommendation, not i. i did not write that inclusiveness being an element of our culture, that somehow mandates inclusive behavior on any of us.
to offer an analogy, if you accept that “honesty is the best policy” is part of our culture, well, that does not still mandate that you be honest! as i said, you are making a straw man argument.
i read shri. tiwari’s blog posts that you shared. to be candid, the writer does not seem to be a trained researcher. i only have time to be brief, but there are many logical problems with his argument; typos are rife; and he uses glittering words such as “hoax” without justifying or explaining as to why he does so.
all of those problems make shri. tiwari’s posts less than credible. i am not surprised that his commentary appears in a self-published blog and not in any peer-reviewed journal.
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>>stupid question, why be a PM when you can enjoy unbridled power without accountability nor responsibility!
Also, go out of the country furtively whenever she wants, when the country is reeling after scam after scam.
http://thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=373111&catid=39&Itemid=53
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@Mysore Peshva
Dear friend, you cited the said shloka as a motto of “inclusive culture of India”. And that is what I have tried to correct by citing the research on that blog. That, this, “vasudhaiva kutumbakam” is NOT meant as a motto of any inclusive culture etc., at least not by those authorities as they quoted it.
In the last comment you have derided that writer by saying, “the writer does not seem to be a trained researcher” and “there are many logical problems with his argument” without mentioning even one logical problem, hiding behind your “i only have time to be brief”. At least that writer has backed up whatever he says with ample citations from sources and authorities. It is *YOU* who has not provided any source that supports your assertion that the shloka is meant as a motto of “inclusive culture”! (No! as shown in that blog as I see it, even Mahopanishad does not give it that meaning.)
Finally, about that writer you have concluded that “i am not surprised that his commentary appears in a self-published blog and not in any peer-reviewed journal.”
And did you do any research before concluding this pompous conclusion of yours?
See for example: “Humor and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, 2011, By Hans Geybels, Walter Van Herck”, citing Shri Tiwari in follows:
“Thus, in contemporary India, countless political and religious orators pompously claim as the core of India’s heritage the motto: Vasudhaiva kutumbakam, ‘The whole world is one family.’ They make it sound as if this is a Hindu equivalent of the Islamic motto: Allahu Akbar. Apart from the utter banality of this one-liner […] it is also an unfortunate choice as authoritative motto because of its original context (see Tiwari 2008). The quoting worthies rarely know the scriptures to which they pay lip-service…”
http://books.google.com/books?id=0VbqaHHywYYC&pg=PA40&dq=Vasudhaiva+kutumbakam+Tiwari&hl=en&ei=wvMWTu-IEIjprAfb_eXPAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Vasudhaiva%20kutumbakam%20Tiwari&f=false
So, sir, like you know little about Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam while banally quoting it as a motto of “inclusive culture”, as the above paragraph says, you are also totally wrong about the acceptance of Shri Tiwari’s research. Not only has his research been cited in international peer-reviewed books, as I have shown you with reference from the above book, but also I have myself attended the International Conference of Indian History 2008-9, where the author had published and presented it.
Therefore, it is you who is “engaged in a straw man fallacy”, not me.
One must learn to be graceful in accepting a new learning, a correction. Imbibing this, “Let Noble Thoughst Come to Us From All Sides”, is surely an intrinsic part of Indian Culture!
Thank you
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*justone*
Thank you, dear sir. I appreciate your counsel. :) All best to you.
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@Justone,
That’s a really spirited defense. Just one question, are you this famed and fabled Shri Tiwariji?
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How many know this!
RahulGandhi, who has no record to speak of is foisted on the country without any regard to eligibility. …
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@kirikiri
If I were, will it change the value of what I wrote?
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If country command( Prime Ministership) is handed over to any person like Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi( 100% incompetant,non desrving & incapable person,the nation & all corrupt politicians br ready to spend rest of their lives in JAILS as Marshal Law( Military rule) will be only solution & once such dictatorshil comes,it will never be democracy again like Pakistan.
THUS NEVER SPEAK OF SONIAJI TO BE P.M.
Suneel
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There is no way Sonia Gandhi can become the PM of India, according to the Indian constitution, someone who is born in India only is eligible for the prime ministership role. I hope the writer is aware of this.
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Amusing analysis, Finally Captain Sonia has to Wo-man the sinking ship not its first mate, All this while the first mate was manning the ship that too with the long list of conditions prescribed by the captain and her gang of well meaning looneys of NAC.
But will she risk it ? As of now there was a comfortable situation for her which meant heads i win tales u loose. She prefers ruling by proxy.She was never blamed for her proxys or his cabinets failures… or policy failure … even though nac was her baby
I think Amul baba can risk it , as he is young and will be forgiven for his failures.
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