Speculations of the Congress’ prince charming getting a bigger role are a seasonal affair. They are having a rerun after Rahul Gandhi met prime minister Manmohan Singh on October 18. A day before this meeting, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister had separate meetings with president Pranab Mukherjee, a day after It was Rahul who went to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Predictably, there was no official word on what transpired in these meetings. So, observers were left to interpret the parleys in the context of the talk of a cabinet reshuffle, made necessary by the exit of the Trinamool Congress ministers as well as two 2G-tainted DMK ministers.

Will Rahul join the cabinet? The standard answer from the party, articulated this time by spokesman Sandeep Dikshit, is :"Rahul and the party will decide."

On one hand, the prime minister has time and again invited the young MP to join the government, and on the other hand, ever since the electoral victory of 2009, partymen are clamouring for a ‘larger role’ for him.

If Rahul’s hard work during the campaign in Uttar Pradesh this year had bore fruit, joining the government – or even leading it, as many predict – would have been a natural follow-up. Given the loss in the largest state, he was forced to go in hibernation, which shows no sign of ending before the December elections in Gujarat.

And, yet, the Congress has few options other than pinning hopes on the young face if it plans to make a comeback after the dip in popularity. For close to two years now the government led by it has been delivering scams on daily basis. It has been cornered by CAG and the popular agitation led by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal. An economic slump, coupled with exceptional inflation, is adding to Manmohan Singh’s travails, and so do the pulls and pressures of a coalition regime. Opposition leaders have termed it the worst government we have had so far, and started predicting elections in 2013.

The Congress showed little courage to fight back till P Chidambaram moved back to the finance ministry and started off with some big-ticket reforms. A ‘bigger role’ for Rahul can be the next step of the Congress fight back.

The risk factor, however, is that the prime minister-in-waiting would be ‘blooded’, so to say, when the party’s popularity is at its lowest. Add to that the high possibility of the party losing the next electoral battle – in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The Congress is not likely to gamble its ace card when chips are so down.