What Rahul Gandhi Really Meant

Congress party's Vice President Rahul Gandhi told a group of Congress
parliamentarians in New Delhi Tuesday that becoming the country's next
prime minister wasn't his priority.

"The Prime Minister's post is not my priority. I believe in long-term
politics," he told the lawmakers.

Local news media quickly picked up on Mr. Gandhi's remark to speculate
that he did not want to become the Congress party's Prime Ministerial
candidate in 2014 elections.

But that's not what he meant, P.C. Chacko, a spokesman for the
Congress party, told India Real Time. What he meant, Mr. Chacko said,
is that climbing the greasy political pole for the sake of it is not
his priority. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to become prime
minister, he added.

Mr. Gandhi "didn't mean that he will not become the prime minister,"
Mr. Chacko said. "That is something to be decided by the party, not
him."

He added: "His basic attitude is that power is for empowering people;
it's not for getting to any post. We have to take his statement in
that context."

Still, such remarks by Mr. Gandhi are likely to add to a sense that
he's a reluctant politician, pushed into the limelight because of his
political heritage. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, is president of
Congress. Mr. Gandhi's father, grandmother and great-grandfather were
all Indian prime ministers.

Many in Congress are betting on the Gandhi name to propel the party to
victory in next year's national elections. Mr. Gandhi is viewed as a
front-runner to lead his party into that race. But he's not been a
very public figure, eschewing media interviews and making only
sporadic public appearances.

In January, Congress signaled it was betting on Mr. Gandhi, elevating
him to vice president, the second senior-most position in the party
after his mother.

Mr. Chacko said it's the party that will decide who becomes its prime
ministerial candidate but with elections still a year away it "doesn't
make sense" to start making conjectures.

Mr. Chacko said that Mr. Gandhi is meeting Congress parliamentarians
from all over the country this week. "He is not the stereotypical
politician who thinks of power for himself," Mr. Chacko said.
wsj