Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi meeting supporters during the second day of his visit to Amethi on Thursday
Rahul Gandhi, who was declared the Congress party's chief campaigner for this year's looming electoral battle, today indicated his willingness to take up the country's top job if his name was approved by the elected representatives after the Lok Sabha polls.
"In the Congress, elected MPs select the Prime Minister. If our party comes to power after the election and the MPs elect me, then I will definitely consider it," Mr Gandhi was quoted as saying by the news agency, Press Trust of India.
The Congress vice-president, who is presently on a two-day visit to his parliamentary constituency Amethi, was responding to a specific query whether he would be willing to shoulder the Prime Minister's responsibility.
"To select a Prime Minister is the right of the MPs and it should stay with them. Selecting a nominee before polls is not a democratic culture, but part of a personality cult," Mr Gandhi said, and cited the example of Dr Manmohan Singh's election process to buttress his argument. "He was selected by the elected representatives as, in Congress, there is no system of naming the prime ministerial candidate before polls," he added.
The Congress vice-president said at the same time that there were several leaders in his party's ranks who could occupy the Prime Minister's post. These include P Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, and Digvijaya Singh, besides his mother Sonia and him
Mrs Gandhi had, at meeting of her party's working committee on January 16, cited long-held party tradition to reject demands from members to declare her son's name as Mr Narendra Modi's challenger in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP poked fun at the decision, arguing that it was tantamount to admitting defeat even before the election process could begin.