Manmohan Singh for Finance Minister

The media was replete with stories of how on Wednesday Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a meeting of crucial infrastructure ministries and exhorted them to move on several crucial projects, including brand new airports, sea ports and highways. Manmohan Singh said the country needs over a trillion dollars of investment in infrastructure in the next five years and private sector participation was vital.

Though some key railway projects were discussed, Mukul Roy, the man in charge of the portfolio was absent. So was finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, whose ministry would be responsible for finding the money for all these ambitions.

What is one to read into these absences? Roy's absence can be attributed perhaps to his mercurial party leader's Wednesday whim. But Pranab Mukherjee's absence is intriguing.

Or may be not. He is currently seen as the frontrunner to become Congress Party's presidential candidate. Party President Sonia Gandhi has to take the call and she is currently holding consultations with allies on the presidential election. While many see Mukherjee's candidature as a foregone conclusion, history shows that Gandhi has a knack for surprises that trip rivals; choosing Manmohan Singh as PM, Pratibha Patil as President and Meira Kumar as Lok Sabha Speaker were signature Sonia moves.

The bigger question, however, is who would take charge at North Block if Mukherjee moves to the big hut on Raisina Hill. The names doing the rounds are those of home minister P Chidambaram and rural affairs minister Jairam Ramesh. Chidambaram is known as one of the most intelligent persons in the current cabinet and has long experience of running the economy. Ramesh has built himself a reputation of being a sharp, thinking minister who loves to be seen working behind glass doors. Both gentlemen work very long hours. Both of them are said to be close to 10 Janpath but distant from the party.

There is another unconventional choice -- Dr Manmohan Singh. The prime minister could take over the finance portfolio himself. There is precedent too. Jawaharlal Nehru was both prime minister and finance minister in 1958-59. His daughter Indira Gandhi too held both the positions simultaneously in 1970-71. Agreed, the finance minister's job is a full time one and requires undivided focus. But the current minister Mukherjee is anyway tied up in too many issues. He heads 25 ministerial groups on issues ranging from finding a location for a war memorial to overhauling the civil aviation sector. Besides, a large amount of Mukherjee's time is spent as chief trouble-shooter for the Congress Party which has an affinity for crises.

Manmohan Singh is an economist of international standing. US President Barack Obama once said, "when Singh speaks the world listens". Singh is widely recognised as the man responsible for changing India's destiny when its economy was trapped in a balance of payments crisis. The country is perilously close to the situation in 1991 today. It certainly can do with Manmohan, the economist. He surely will know how to revive the economy and fix public finances. He did help create the economic super structure that we now see. However, if he does take over the portfolio, will he be as effective as he was in the early nineties? After all, he does not have a prime minister like Narasimha Rao who could shield him from political squalls and storms. The present  prime minister says he cannot act because of "coalition compulsions." Rao helped change the course of the Indian economy while running a minority government. That is called the art of the possible.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.