Rahul Gandhi may succeed as Congress chief in weeks — report

REUTERS (New Delhi): Rahul Gandhi is likely to succeed his mother and India’s most powerful politician Sonia Gandhi as Congress party chief in four to eight weeks, The Economic Times reported on Saturday, citing several unnamed party leaders and a government minister.

While the party spokesmen denied any knowledge of the development and refused to comment on whether Rahul will become president of the party, analysts said much would depend on his mother’s health.

“I don’t see him becoming a president straightaway. Becoming a working president would be logical progression,” Amulya Ganguli, a political analyst, told Reuters.

“However, much would depend on Sonia Gandhi’s health.”

Speculation over the 41-year-old Rahul’s ascendancy is building ever since Sonia Gandhi went to the United States in August for treatment for an undisclosed illness, asking Rahul to administer political affairs of his party as part of a quartet.

Although Sonia returned in September after the surgery, her public appearances have been very limited and very little is known about her health.

The development comes at a time when the Congress party is seen fast losing its grip on the country’s politics and looks directionless in the face of a slew of corruption scandals, leading to a policy paralysis.

Congress is credited with opening up the economy in the 1990s and laying the foundation for its rapid growth in ensuing years. But this policy paralysis is making it preside over the worst slowdown in the economy since the global financial downturn in 2008.

India’s central bank expects the economy to grow 7.6 percent in the current fiscal year, sharply lower than 8.5 percent in the last fiscal and worst since 2008/09 when it grew 6.8 percent.

The succession is expected to bring the Gandhi-Nehru family’s heir, viewed as the Prime Minister-in-waiting, steps closer towards donning the mantle of the Congress-led ruling coalition.

However, not many are convinced of Rahul’s leadership skills after he received lots of flak for his party’s inept handling of anti-graft protests led by Gandhian activist Anna Hazare in August.

“He has not been very impressive in last few months. But what has been more worrying is his enigmatic silence,” said Ganguli.

“No one knows his views on public policy issues.”

The Economic Times’ news report said Sonia Gandhi would restrict her role to providing broad directions to the party and the government after her son’s coronation.

Italian-born Sonia, 64, helped Congress win the last two general elections, but the party faces a more problematic challenge in the next one due in 2014, as a rising urban middle class, fed up with endemic corruption and poor governance, flexes its muscles.

 Rahul Gandhi is putting his leadership credentials to the test by leading the Congress campaign for local elections next year in Uttar Pradesh, a poor and caste-ridden state with 200 million people, equivalent to the world’s fifth-most populous country and considered a political barometer for India as a whole. Congress had finished a poor fourth in the last state assembly elections there in 2007.