‘Mamata should lead INDIA bloc’: Manmohan's ex-adviser argues, TMC MP agrees

NEw ideas on who should top out or handle the Opposition's republic of india axis emerged from former top functionaries of the Congress era on Monday. Sanjaya Baru, who served as media adviser to then-PM Manmohan Singh, has pitched for Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of poll-bound West Bengal.He argued that, “as the only woman to presently head both a political party and a government”, Mamata Banerjee stands apart from the current generation of leaders at the national and regional levels.Calling her a “totally self-made, first-generation leader”, Baru argued in an article for The Telegraph that “repeating the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh model with Rahul Gandhi-Mallikarjun Kharge has not helped”.His piece was shared on X by Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose from Banerjee's party Trinamool Congress (TMC). “An idea whose time has come,” Ghose wrote.‘Long time since we had a woman PM’“Considering the fact that the (ruling) BJP is a male-dominated party, an Opposition alliance led by a woman political leader, that too one who symbolises independent womanhood, can make a dent into the BJP’s more recently acquired women’s vote base,” Baru wrote.“In any case, it is a long time since we have had a woman prime minister,” he further said. Indira Gandhi has so far been the only female PM of India.Aiyar names Stalin: ‘Will help Rahul’The same day, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, former Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that “if the INDIA bloc is consolidated, I think the best man to consolidate it is MK Stalin”, the DMK boss and chief minister of Tamil Nadu, which is also bound for assembly elections soon.“Rahul Gandhi can become the PM of India, provided there is somebody to spend all his time consolidating the INDIA bloc,” Aiyar told news agency ANI. "What Stalin has done over the past year is to raise every single point that is relevant to federalism in India. Therefore, I believe that he is the best person to become chairman of the INDIA bloc; and he has the great virtue that he won't stand in the way of Rahul Gandhi becoming the PM," he further said.What Congress said on AiyarThe Congress did not react to these arguments yet. However, the party did react to Aiyar's praise of Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, whom the Congress-led Opposition in the state is hoping to unseat in the polls this year.Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Monday called Aiyar's remarks — in which he predicted return of the Vijayan-led government in Kerala — as his “personal opinion”.Venugopal added that Aiyar is no longer in the party anyway.Sachin Pilot, the Congress observer for the Kerala elections, echoed Venugopal's statement: “He is not a part of the Congress party. I don't want to comment on it.”Mamata's party remains part of the INDIA bloc, formed ahead of the 2024 election, at the national level in opposing the Narendra Modi government; but it remains on its own at the state level.