New Year to see Rahul Gandhi as PM man

New Delhi: It could all become official with speculation gaining ground that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intends to declare AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi as the Congress’ candidate for Prime Minister on January 3.

With the BJP racing ahead by naming Narendra Modi to lead the NDA in the 2014 general election, the chorus to project Rahul Gandhi as the Congress’ PM candidate has been growing in his party over the past few months.

On Monday, finance minister P. Chidambaram, while speaking to a TV channel, also favoured the view in the Congress about naming its PM candidate. “I think today in parliamentary elections as well as state elections voters tend to ask who is the leader. Therefore, in my view, the party should project a person as the leader of the party who will become PM if the party forms the government,” Chidambaram said.

After being routed in Assembly polls in four states, the Congress feels that naming Gandhi as PM candidate could change the grim scenario for the party and enthuse party workers.

PM will not quit early

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has been trying to send signals that he is set to cleanse the party and is in no mood to tolerate corruption. Stepping out of his shell, Rahul Gandhi has been speaking on a number of issues, ranging from the Lokpal Bill to the Adarsh housing scam in Mumbai.

The Prime Minister, who is expected to make this announcement at his press conference on January 3, had earlier made it clear that he was willing to work under Rahul Gandhi. “I have always maintained that Rahul Gandhi would be an ideal choice for the PM post after the 2014 elections. I will be happy to work in the Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi,” Dr Singh had said on his way back from the G-20 Summit in Russia in September. The Prime Minister is also likely to release a report highlighting the achievements in 10 years of UPA rule.

Meanwhile, the PMO on Tuesday denied reports that Dr Singh was going to step down as PM before the 2014 polls. While the PMO issued a statement saying “the Prime Minister will complete his tenure”, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari attacked the media for its “baseless” speculation. “I know on December 31 there is little news but this does not mean that absurd, baseless and incorrect news stories should be run,” Tewari fumed. For him, “Prime Minister, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are the trinity of the Congress.” On being asked about Rahul Gandhi being projected as the Congress’ PM candidate, Tewari said: “Rahul Gandhi is the natural leader of the Congress.”

In his bid to sound positive and optimistic, Tewari, while talking about the Congress being routed in four states, argued “that as a party, may be as a government, they have been disappointing. But if you look at them in perspective, out of 29 states which went to polls in the last five years, the Congress won 12 of those states.”

The BJP, however, maintained that naming Rahul Gandhi as the PM candidate would not change the Congress’ slide at the national level. “If they make Rahul Gandhi their PM candidate, then everybody knows what happened to the Congress in the Assembly elections. The whole country knows that Rahul Gandhi could not click anywhere,” BJP leader Mr Yashwant Sinha said.