If Rahul Gandhi is to be believed, no coalition partner of the UPA other than the Congress has the rightful claim to the PM's post. This is what he meant when he said if the Left Front or Mr Sharad Pawar can win seats close to 200 then the Congress can think of supporting the NCP or the Left Front candidate for the Prime Ministership. The sarcasm in his declaration cannot be missed since the NCP and the Left Front put together are not contesting more than 100-odd seats in the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha.

By any reasonable logic and given the party's sway as the oldest national party, across states from Kerela to Kashmir and from Assam to Gujarat, the Congress is destined to log close to one-third of the seats it is contesting. (No pollster yet has allowed his/her psephological instinct to run wild and put more than 150-odd seats in the Congress kitty.) Clearly, Rahul Gandhi is sending out a message to all his allies not to dream big. Not until the Congress T-Rex is scouring the Jurassic Park of multi-party Indian politics.

Apart from sheer political opportunism, its insensitivity in denying the regional parties their due share in Delhi's power corridors, Rahul Gandhi's statement rings of historical misadventures of the Congress. Back in 1937, the Nehru-led Indian National Congress had denied the Muslim League an opportunity to share power in the first direct elections following the Government of India Act in 1935. Though the Congress had won a majority in elections to the UP Provincial Assembly, the party did not win any seats reserved for Muslims. On the other hand, the Muslim League won 29 of the reserved seats. The Congressmen put a condition before the League: dissolve the League and accept the Congress discipline before participating in the new government. The Congress high-handedness did not reassure the Muslim opinion a wee bit. It further triggered the Muslim belief that Indian Muslims comprised a nation entitled to a separate state of their own.

Seventy years since the Congress misadventure, Nehru's great-grandson is talking the same language with its political allies. Allies who have supported the Congress Prime Minister for five years. Allies who unflinchingly accepted Manmohan Singh's leadership. Like-minded players like the Left who stayed away from power-sharing but still supported the UPA from outside. But power-sharing cannot be decided by a thumb rule. No doubt, numbers do matter in a democracy but Indian politics is not governed by the rules and dictum that is the sine qua non for running a multi-national company. Where the person who holds 51 per cent shares gets to enjoy the exclusive privilege and status to chair the board meetings. However, there is a difference in how you anchor a boardroom meeting and how you conduct governance in a multi-party democracy.

Therefore, even a regional political player is dreaming big. Unlike the days of the League, each political player now wants an equal share in the power cake without being made to feel slighted or humiliated. If it has supported an ally without any pre-conditions it expects its bigger partner to help realise its dreams as well. Numbers do decide who would be the kingmaker and who would be the king. But when the political situation is fluid, it throws up queer permutation and combination that defies traditional arithmetic. It makes kings out of kingmakers.

Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are not in as comfortable and an enviable position as Nehru was in 1937 when the party did not need the League support to form the government. The mechanics and semantics of politics have undergone a sea change since. The era of single-party government has collapsed. The Congress which was reduced to 197 seats in 1989 did improve its tally to 227 in the 1991 elections following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. But the Narasimha Rao government had to bribe its way to survival in Parliament for five years, thanks to a regional party like the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Thereafter, the Congress had to cool its heels on the Opposition benches for eight long years before it cobbled a coalition government in 2004.

The fear of the UPA stopping short of a majority has been dogging the Congress mindset. Precisely why Rahul tempers his criticism of the Left by seeking to find a common ground with it in the near future. But the Left, which withdrew support to the UPA government over the Congress' uncompromising stand on the nuclear deal with the US, is not amused. The Left firmly believes the time has come when the Congress should get ready to be led rather than lead. The Maharashtra example is a case in point. Despite logging more seats than the Congress, the NCP sacrificed the post of chief minister for its coalition partner. If it can happen in Mumbai, the mechanics can very well work out in New Delhi too.

The Left has shown extraordinary willingness to overcome its historic blunder stance of 1996. And its ambitious idea of cobbling a solid post-poll coalition comprising the BSP, TDP, BJD and AIADMK under the Third Front umbrella as also partners within the UPA is not merely wishful thinking. Some of the UPA partners like Mulayam, Lalu and Paswan have sought out the Left guidance on government formation. Their ambivalence on the issue of accepting Congress nominee Manmohan as the next Prime Minister is not to be missed. Ditto with Maratha leader Sharad Pawar. Kingmakers all and potential kings as well. The spectre of such a coalition is giving goose-bumps to the Congress and its star campaigner Rahul Gandhi.

Karat-led India Inc is getting ready. So is the Rahul brigade. Though the leader himself has curiously opted out of the race of prime ministership. Perhaps that too is a carefully calculated manoeuvre. But the game of outmanoeuvering is about to begin. Someone will be outmanoeuvered. Someone will get the chair. The game is, no doubt, going to be a close one. The million-dollar question is Kaun banega pradhanmantri?. Will Rahul be able to secure a second-term for Manmohan Singh as prime minister? Or will it be a return to 1996 for the Congress? Or Will Advani walk away with more partners post poll and defy predictions? May 16 promises to throw up a new game of political Sudoku. Whoever cracks it gets the power cake.