The Congress continues to speak with a forked tongue over the possibility of its vice-president Rahul Gandhi being its Prime Ministerial candidate in the 2014 general elections.
A day after Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh indicated that Rahul Gandhi would not be projected as the Congress’ Prime Ministerial candidate in the lok Sabha polls, his party colleague Janardan Dwivedi on Saturday emerged yet again to term it as his personal opinion even as he sought to suggest that the Gandhi scion was very much in the race for the country’s top job.
“Individuals may have their personal opinions, but on such issues final decision is taken by the party only. The party has declared in Jaipur at the time when Rahul Gandhi’s appointment as vice-president was announced that the question of campaign and leadership will be decided by it later. No time frame was announced”, Dwivedi said on Digvijay’s hint about Rahul.
When asked why the Congress was diffident in projecting Rahul as the Prime Ministerial candidate, Digvijay had said, “We do not have a presidential form of Government. The Congress does not declare PM or CM candidates before elections...Even in the Karnataka Assembly elections we had not declared any CM candidate.”
Significantly, when Digvijay had earlier demanded that Rahul should be declared as the Prime Ministerial candidate, Dwivedi, who was then AICC general secretary Media Department in-charge, had then also termed it his personal opinion.
The new head of the AICC Communication Department Ajay Maken, however, steered clear of the controversy by refusing to answer questions related to Rahul as PM candidate or for that matter, the party’s man for the top job.
Another theory doing the rounds suggests that the Congress speaking in different voices over Rahul is a planned move to keep the BJP and other Opposition parties guessing. And also to remain unaffected by any negative repercussions that a formal announcement would entail.
Congress leaders, however, maintained that since Rahul is the Number 2 in the party and is taking most of the decisions including the recent AICC reshuffle besides even starting to attend Congress Core Group meetings, he is the natural choice for the PM’s post if the UPA comes to power after the lok Sabha polls.
“The Congress is avoiding projecting him formally. Manmohan Singh is the PM and projecting another person for the post would embarrass him. It is another matter that even Singh had hinted that he would welcome Rahul stepping into his shoes thereby indicating the impending change,” they said.
The Congress also wants to avoid making it a Rahul vs Narendra Modi fight in the lok Sabha elections. Sources said it would instead try to focus on propagating its developmental issues in the election campaign-be it the Food Security Ordinance or Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.