Kolkata, Sept 19: India is facing a dearth of real leaders - leaders who woefully lack Prime Ministerial material, said panelists in The Statesman debate conducted after the presentation of The Statesman Awards for Rural Reporting 2011 and The cushrow Irani Prize for Environmental Reporting.
The topic was "Every one is playing a cameo on today's political stage" and the participants were former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi MP, India TV Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Rajat Sharma, Dr Ajoy Kumar, MP and Arati Jerath, journalist.
Some of the panelists said that a possibility of the country's next Prime Minister being Mulayam Singh Yadav, or J Jayalalithaa or Naveen Patnaik or even Mayawati could not be ruled out.
Such a possibility can't be ruled out since the crop of politicians strutting and fretting on the national stage have the capacity for a cameo innings only and woefully lack true Prime Ministerial material, the panelists said.
Rajat Sharma said the last leader of stature was Atal Behari Vajpayee who had once given him the “friendly advice” not to shower panegyrics on him in his popular TV programmes as this would only damage his credibility as a journalist.
