Congress party has hit a controversy as senior party leader P Chidambaram has said that the Gandhi heir has not been projected as the party’s PM face yet. This statement is somewhat contradictory to the one made by party president Rahul Gandhi that he is ready to be PM if his ally supports him. He might have at least said it on two occasions that he was ‘ready’ to become the country’s Prime Minister if the Congress party came to power in 2019. Chidambaram in an interview to News18 Tamil TV channel said, “Congress has not officially said Rahul Gandhi is its Prime Ministerial candidate”.
The former Finance Minister said that the party will probably fight the 2019 general elections in the form of an alliance and hence the allies would decide who their Prime Minister should be. Chidambaram added that the Prime Minister’s post was not an issue for the Congress party and said that the party leaders have been asked to not talk about it in the run-up to the elections in 2019. He also said that projecting a prime ministerial candidate is not necessary and several leaders have been made prime ministers without being named as prime ministerial candidates, said the report.
Chidambaram said that the main focus of the Congress party right now is to ‘remove’ the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and form a government that ‘does not indulge in tax terrorism, take away human rights, does not threaten the people but provide security to women and children and gives a remunerative price to farmers for the farm produce’, quoted by IANS.
Twice earlier, Gandhi had answered in affirmative as to whether he is ready to be PM or not. In May, while addressing a gathering in Bengaluru for Samruddha Bharat Foundation, Gandhi had reportedly responded to a question on the possibility of his becoming the PM, saying, “That depends on how the Congress performs if it emerges as the biggest party — yes.” In September 2017, speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, Gandhi had reportedly said that he was ‘ready’ to become the PM of the country.