Prince smart, Princess smarter

Prince at a rally in Punjab: Turban good, poor choice of color, 

- it says 'Kamal' (lotus) on the mikestand

After the somewhat unexpected success in 2004, the secular party honchos decided that they had finally found the winning formula. The prince had arrived. However, a series of assembly election failures showed that it wasn't quite the second coming they had expected.

Meanwhile, the prince does not quite seem to be prime time ready either, wherever he goes  unchaperoned, he keeps committing blunders. His Youth Congress thing turned out to be a disaster, his poverty tourism was totally panned by everyone other than the loyalists. Even the media got bored. 

So the party has a problem. If they position the youth as the next PM, the pretend intellectuals will get jeered in the country club by opposition supporters. If they don't, the coalition's long term future will be in jeopardy - just see how many contenders for PM the UPA has. 

Meanwhile the Princess is doing a lot better. She seems to be quite the vote catcher. She speaks the most banal catch phrases with total confidence. The media goes ecstatic. Having once ruled out a political career for herself, she seems a lot more open to the idea these days. Perhaps it is just a matter of time - the older she gets, the more she resembles Indira Gandhi from certain angles.