Prime Minister Candidate - 1
With six months to go for the next parliamentary election, its time to ponder this question.
I think we can ignore the chances of Mayawati only at our own peril. She may not be Oxford educated as Manmohan Singh, but she is politically smarter than even Lalu. A lot of the educated middle class folks may not like her. I am sure the stock markets would not like her one bit. But we should also remember that stock market crowd is hardly 5% of ‘real India’ albeit very audible in the national media.
If she can scale up her ’social engineering’ tactic (as in political science) to the national level by bringing the ‘economically weaker section’ criteria to the reservation issue, and can bring the Communists to her fold, which they might given their present antagonism towards BJP and Congress, I think she can give anyone a run for their money. Sathish Chandra Mishra and Akilesh Das might as well be the next Union Home and Finance Ministers respectively, you never know.
I do not necessarily think she has given a good governance in U.P. Nor do I say I am a fan of Mayawati.
All I say is, my likes and dislikes do not matter. If she gets the deal right with Communists and manages to leverage her Dalit + Brahmin vote bank in UP, she will have a fighting chance to rule this country. How long will she rule, how will she rule.. those are are all totally different stories.
You might want to start your prayers now.