UPA’s heavy artillery won’t see action in this battle

NEW DELHI: The big guns that boomed during the decadelong Congress rule will be missing from the 2014 mega battle, taking away from the star cast that would have added to the excitement of the make-or-break contest.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who was the reason for Congress' fabulous 2009 comeback but has since become a burden of sorts is out of the frame. While he preferred a Rajya Sabha nomination during his stay as PM for ten years, he has announced his retirement this year and ended any chance of entering the Lok Sabha fray. Pranab Mukherjee, the ubiquitous fi gure of the two UPA tenures, has since moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan. He paved the way for his son to contest from his constituency, Jangipur in West Bengal.

Abhijit won the by-election following Pranab's shift as President of the Republic. In the absence of Singh and Mukherjee, Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul would be in the fray from Rae Bareli and Amethi to keep the big names from the party stable in the fi ght.
Else, to many it looks like a break with the UPA that lasted the decade on the Delhi throne. P Chidambaram, the performer and go-to man of the Congress leadership, has opted out of the fray. He has instead put his son Karti in his now-famous Sivaganga constituency.

Chidambaram started off as the fi nance minister and was shifted to the home ministry when the 26/11 Mumbai attacks forced the exit of then home minister Shivraj Patil in UPA1. He later regained the finance ministry when Pranab Mukherjee moved to the President's House. He has been the trouble-shooter and policy wonk rolled into one.

Defence minister AK Antony has decided to keep out of the shrill battle with the Left Front in his home state of Kerala. "Mr Clean", who presided over the big-ticket defence ministry for most of the UPA tenure, faced rough weather over sensitive allegations over corruption and the coup drama but came out unscathed. He will continue in the Rajya Sabha.

Congressmen, however, insist that "Saint" Antony cannot be called an absentee from the battle since he would very much be the star campaigner in Kerala. Sharad Pawar, who was in the thick of every controversy of UPA ranging from food and agriculture to cricket, has already come to Rajya Sabha, having announced that he had had enough of direct elections over his fi ve decades in politics.

Having had a health scare in the past, Pawar is the Maratha strongman still shepherding his baby NCP in the rough and tumble of Maharashtra politics and would be the key figure in any post-poll match-making at the Centre. But not in this Lok Sabha battle.