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 Of
all the 26 alphabets in English it is ‘R’ that has dominated the
political echelons of the country at the highest level. Call it
coincidence or destiny, all our prime ministers and presidents in
the country (save for Giani Zail Singh) had the alphabet in their
names. Pick any prime minister or president, the alphabet ‘R’ is not
only present in their names but also in their designations. Starting
from the first president of the country, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and
going on to Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Dr. Zakir Hussain,
Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Dr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Dr. Neelam
Sanjiva Reddy, R. Venkataraman, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, K. R.
Narayanan and the present Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam,
all have it in their names.
The same alphabet has also been lucky for the
prime ministers of the country as every one of them too sported the
ubiquitous alphabet in their names, be it in their first name,
middle name or surname. Beginning from Jawaharlal Nehru, who was
sworn in as the first prime minister of independent India, all the
other prime ministers too who followed him also had the R alphabet
Gulzari Lal Nanda, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Morarji
Desai, Charan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, Vishwanath Pratap Singh,
Chandrashekhar, P. V. Narasimha Rao, Herdenila Deve Gowda, I. K.
Gujral and the incumbent Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
With Lok Sabha elections due early next year,
astrologers are predicting that the alphabet ‘R’ will again be a
necessary ascendant in the horoscope of the potential winner to win
the election and to become the prime minister of this country. The
persons being projected for the prime ministerial gaddi are
BJP Atal Behari Vajpayee and Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
However, Sonia does not have the ‘compulsory’ R in her name and she
may therefore win the battle of the ballot but lose the battle of
the alphabets. Her rival, Vajpayee, has the Brahm Shastra R
in his armoury. So what can Sonia do to overcome the problem. One
suggestion is that she change her name in keeping with fashion and
add her husband’s name, the late Rajiv Gandhi. Then she can be
called ‘Sonia Rajiv Gandhi’ Otherwise there is always Rahul or
Priyanka in the sidelines, with the ‘deadly’ ‘R’ in their holsters. |
