Rahul Gandhi to lead Congress poll campaign, but won’t be PM candidate

mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Jan 16: The Congress will fight the 2014 Lok Sabha elections under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. However, India’s Grand Old Party stopped short of naming him the prime ministerial candidate with Congress leadership not keen on taking the plunge. According to Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi, it is not the party’s tradition to name a prime ministerial candidate.

"Sonia Gandhi herself opposed nominating Rahul as the PM candidate. Just because one party has announced its PM candidate, we need not announce one, she said," Dwivedi said after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held on Thursday.

 

Dwivedi said that Rahul himself did not want to be named the Congress’s PM candidate and just wanted to work for the party. "He is the future leader of the Congress. Sonia said that the next elections will be under the leadership of Rahul," Dwivedi said at a press conference.

Several leaders attending the CWC meeting at New Delhi on Thursday had urged the top leadership that Rahul should be projected as the prime ministerial candidate to take on Modi. Their view was that Congress should contest the elections under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.

Speculations had been rife that Rahul will be declared the Congress’s PM candidate at the AICC meet which will be held on Friday. Many Congress leaders like Salman Khurshid and Jyotiraditya Scindia had gone on record to say that they support Rahul as PM candidate.

"Those who do not support Rahul as prime ministerial candidate will have to go," Khurshid had said.

But the top Congress leadership is not keen on breaking from its tradition. "Sonia Gandhi said it is not a convention in the Congress to announce the PM candidate in advance," Dwivedi said.

The Congress’s ally Nationalist Congress Party expressed its support after the announcement. "We are with the Congress. In 2004, too, there was no face," the party said.

However, the BJP said the Congress was trying to protect Rahul from a devastating defeat against Narendra Modi.

"Congress avoided Rahul as PM candidate as the party did not want him to face Modi. The Congress knows it is going to be defeated badly," BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad said. "Rahul Gandhi is no match for Narendra Modi," he added.