Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Life is like cricket and "I want to decide on how I will play the last ten overs" of life, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said justifying his stand of not contesting the Lok Sabha polls.
While maintaining that he will continue to work for the party, the senior Congress leader also said, "I want to travel, read and write and to connect with my friends."
"I am not old enough to write an autobiography", he said when asked whether he plans to pen his memoirs.
"It is a good question. I have fought eight elections over 30 years. I have to do many other things in my life. Life has only one innings. It is like T-20 or ODI-50. I have to decide how I have to play last ten overs of my life," the 68-year-old senior Congress leader told reporters.
Asked whether he wanted to shift to the Rajya Sabha, he remarked "no one has offered me, are you offering me".
Rejecting questions as to whether he "shied away" from contesting this time as it was a difficult election and he feared defeat, the Finance Minister said that he had lost the Lok Sabha polls in 1999 but that did not deter him from contesting in 2004 and 2009. (
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He also brushed aside a question on whether he would like to take on Narendra Modi in Varanasi in Lok Sabha polls.
"I wish I could contest. But I cannot communicate in Hindi. I am sure Modi will also not like to contest from Sivganga", he said. Sivganga is the pocketborough of Chidambaram from where his son Karti is contesting.
"The party is looking for a strong candidate against Modi. If it takes a day or two, so be it," he said.