Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s leading political family, to join the government, lauding his role in the ruling Congress Party’s biggest election victory in almost two decades.
Gandhi “should be in the cabinet, but I will have to persuade him,” Singh said in New Delhi today. Gandhi, 38, declined to say whether he would accept, telling reporters his focus remains on drawing young voters to Congress.
“My job as I see it now is changing the politics of the country through the youngsters,” who comprise 70 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population, he said in remarks broadcast on Indian news channels from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Congress’ victory, with Gandhi as its chief campaigner, may pave his way to succeed Singh, 76, as head of the world’s largest democracy. The party is set to win 60 more seats than in 2004, sidelining its main foe, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Rahul Gandhi has a shot at running this country for the next 15 years with the decimation of the BJP,” said Samir Arora, who oversees an India-focused hedge fund at Helios Capital Management Pte in Singapore. “It’s a fabulous result, way beyond what the Congress would have thought.”
Sonia Gandhi
Party president Sonia Gandhi pushed her son to the fore in this election, putting his face at the center of posters and billboards. He addressed 120 rallies, compared with 68 for his mother and 21 for Singh, according to the Indian Express newspaper.
While all the reasons for the surprise victory margin remain to be analyzed, “Rahul will win credit and reap the benefit,” said Ashutosh Kumar, political science professor at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northwestern India.
When the early vote count showed Congress ahead, party activists celebrating outside their headquarters in New Delhi shouted for Rahul to be given power. He rebuffed such suggestions throughout the campaign, saying that the most qualified leader is Singh.
“I think he should be prime minister now,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia, 38, a Congress legislator and close Gandhi ally from the central state of Madhya Pradesh. “He has all the qualities, capabilities and he has shown that,” Scindia said on the news channel NDTV.
Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty
While the Nehru-Gandhi family has provided three prime ministers, including his assassinated father, Rajiv, Rahul initially resisted entering politics and ran his first race, for a parliament seat, just five years ago.
Kumar said Gandhi’s energetic campaign deserves at least partial credit for the Congress victory. Gandhi outdistanced all Indian politicians in campaign travel, flying 87,000 kilometers (54,000 miles) around the country to attend rallies, the daily Hindustan Times reported May 12.
Sonia Gandhi turned down the position of prime minister in 2004, in part because of her Italian roots. She has continued to lead Congress and oversaw the campaign.
“We have won the elections under the visionary leadership of Sonia Gandhi and the youthful leadership of Rahul Gandhi,” Singh said, flanked by 62-year-old Sonia.
Uttar Pradesh
In India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, which elects 80 of the 543 members of parliament, Congress was on course to win 22 seats, up from nine in the last election. Voters in the state, frustrated with petty bickering by local parties “found in Rahul a young man with a vision and a commitment to the public,” said R. K. Mishra, a political science professor at Lucknow University in the state capital.
Gandhi’s push over the past year to rebuild the party’s state and local organizations, and to urge greater internal democracy, helped win voters, Mishra and Kumar said in telephone interviews. Still, they said, much of the advance is due to the failings of its opponents, who were seen by voters as corrupt and ineffectual in advancing economic development.
