Natwar Singh might have flagged off the Gandhis' greatest fall

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) might have lost in the election, but it is still losing its battle in the non-electoral politics. Ever since it became clear that the

-led coalition was inching towards a disaster after a decade-long rule, thanks to the meteoric rise of a decisive force called Narendra Modi, a number of voices and books began to emerge exposing the beleaguered Congress.

A couple of books by two bureaucrats were released earlier exposing the dual power centre culture in the UPA and the helpless prime minister in Manmohan Singh. Now, it is the turn for an old aide of India's top political family, Natwar Singh, to bomb the remains of the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic aura.
There is no doubt about the fact that Singh has made all these revelations now because the time is safe.

If Natwar Singh knew all this so well, why was he silent for 9 years?

The UPA has not only been booted out of power, the coming of a majority government in power also means that there is little chance of the Congress succeeding to even manipulate a way back to the power, unlike the unstable coalition era that existed between late 1980s and late 1990s.

Was Natwar Singh waiting for his pound of flesh?

Singh, who was sacked as the foreign minister after his son was found to be involved in Iraqi-oil-for-food-scandal, might have waited for his time to seek the revenge of the embarrassment and did not give it a second thought to pounce upon the family with which he had a close tie for a long, long time.

Natwar has revaled his own ill-wills at the appropriate time

But Natwar Singh's revenge has not only exposed the inner story of the Congress's decline but also his own ill-wills. The man was seen speaking about the incompetence of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by revealing his mediocre handling of the Sri Lankan issue but in a way that showed that he remained loyal to the late leader more than his widow. This is politics of extremely bad taste. There was no need to provide a safety net to Rajiv Gandhi by saying he was a decent man with genuine intentions of resolving the Sri Lankan problem while stressing that the former PM had no idea about the problem.

Natwar exposed Rajiv Gandhi's foreign policy incompetence diplomatically

Being a man who has seen foreign policy, a realm of hard realism, how could Singh present such a meaningless defence of Rajiv Gandhi knowing very well that what he achieved in Sri Lanka was disastrous?

Reviving Sonia's turning down PM post episode of 2004

His revelation that Rahul Gandhi forced her mother not to become the prime minister in 2004 is another embarrassment for the party. If it is true, then why did Sonia say that she listen to her "inner voice" and decided against becoming the PM?

Several versions of the story will only embarrass the Gandhis more

Or even if she did, does the Congress prioritise private and personal equations over the real political ones? If indeed the family doesn't want power thinking it to be poison (as Rahul has stressed later as well) after two tragic deaths, then why doesn't it renounce the game of power completely and hand over the Congress to a non-Gandhi successor? Why are the Gandhis so bothered to get the Leader of the Opposition's post today? Are they thinking that a change of luck in another five years may catapult them to the top office yet again?

The legacy of Nehru has been laid to dust today by the politics of his successors and their loyalists

The legacy of the great Jawaharlal Nehru has been ruined by his successors and their opportunist loyalists. The systematic destruction of the party's institutionalized politics and the emphasis on leader-follower equations has pushed it to the brink today. Natwar Singh is just one of those dissatisfied loyalists. Tomorrow, there could be more implosions in the party for the loyalists have realized that the pyramid's pinnacle is no more what it was in the past.

The Congress's final institute, the Gandhis, is facing the test of its life now. Natwar Singh might have just marked the beginning of a journey which would see bigger embarrassments unfolding in the coming days.