New Delhi:
On the fourth birthday of the UPA 2, the government's crisis manager and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath has suggested it is time to project Rahul Gandhi as the ruling party's candidate for Prime Minister in the next general elections now months away.
Talking to NDTV, Kamal Nath, who is the Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, ruled out that those elections would be held earlier than mid-2014, when they are scheduled. "I don't think election is inevitable. The election will take place when it has to take place, at the scheduled time. As things stand now, there is no possibility," Mr Kamal Nath said.
He said Rahul Gandhi, the Congress' number 2, "now has all his 10 fingers in, he has served as vice-president and he should be projected as the prime ministerial candidate for the Congress party." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said, "has served his 10 years."
While there has been a clamour within the Congress that the 43-year-old Mr Gandhi be projected for PM should the party win the next elections, the party leadership has as yet stopped short of doing so and Dr Singh himself has indicated several times that he might be good for a third term as PM.
Today, however, as his government celebrates four years in power in its second straight term, the BJP has torn into Dr Singh, with senior leader Sushma Swaraj saying, "I have to say this unfortunately that the PM is not a leader. He looks at Sonia Gandhi for every decision."
Her colleague Arun Jaitley said, "No other PM has been the target of humour and sarcasm." The BJP suggests that the Congress-led UPA, hit by scandal after corruption scandal, has nothing to celebrate about. The main Opposition party has also accused the Congress and the government it leads of being at odds to the detriment of the country.
Mr Kamal Nath denied that charge and said, "There has been no differences between Mrs Gandhi and the Prime Minister. Every time, there's a consensus, a complete agreement on all decisions."