Rahul to lead poll campaign but won’t be PM choice
Friday, 17/01/2014
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Sonia Gandhi intervenes, says no tradition to name candidate
New Delhi : Amid the chorus for making Rahul Gandhi prime ministerial nominee, the Congress decided to anoint vice president Rahul Gandhi head of the party’s 2014 poll campaign.
After a crucial Congress Working Committee meeting, party spokesperson Janardan Dwivedi said,“This meeting of CWC declares that the 2014 election campaign will be led by Rahul Gandhi.”
A draft resolution will come before the AICC meeting on Friday for approval.
While several Congress Working Committee (CWC) members were keen that Rahul be anointed the party’s prime ministerial candidate, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi intervened to say that it was not the tradition of the party to declare the candidate.
She said Rahul Gandhi would lead the party campaign for 2014, Dwivedi told reporters after the CWC meet. The demand for Rahul to be made PM candidate was raised by Kerala PCC chief Ramesh Chennithala and got instant support from a host of leaders, including B K Hari Prasad, Gurudas Kamat, Ghulam Nabi Azad and youth Congress chief Rajiv Satav.
Soon after the CWC meeting began, Chennithala made a strong pitch to declare Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate saying, “time has now come to do it” and reasoned this will enthuse the youth and will be beneficial for Congress in the changed demographic scenario.
As the leaders made a common chorus to name Rahul as PM pick, Sonia Gandhi intervened saying why should the party name a PM candidate before polls when there is no such precedent.
Rahul has been entrusted to lead the campaign a year after he was made the party vice-president in the brain-storming session at Jaipur in January last.
Taking a dig at BJP, which has declared Narendra Modi as its PM candidate, Dwivedi said that in Congress the question of making anyone the PM candidate never arose starting from the era of Jawaharlal Nehru to the 2004 elections, which the party fought under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. “It is always clear who is the leader in Congress. It is never an issue for us,” he said. Reacting to the decision, Rahul Gandhi said he was a dedicated worker of the party and would carry out whatever responsibility given by the organisation.
Among the other issues raised in the meet was price rise. Leaders urged the government to turn proactive to roll out measures that would benefit the ‘aam aadmi’ like raising the limit of subsidised LPG cylinders from nine to 12 and eschew from steps like petrol price hike.
Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily was ‘cornered’, a member said, adding that leaders insisted that the government should not delay a decision on the issue of LPG cylinders.
Kerala PCC chief Ramesh Chennithala said, “It needs to be pondered whether we are going ahead with liberalisation that has a human face.”
