RAHUL GANDHI, the scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi ruling dynasty, took a step closer to power yesterday when his ailing mother passed the leadership of the ruling Congress Party to him in her absence.
Sonia Gandhi (64), the party’s president, identified her son, alongside three other senior Congress leaders, to take charge of the party while she undergoes surgery in the US.
The announcement of Ms Gandhi’s three-week absence from India and her medical condition is rare. In the past, Indian media have refrained from publicising her absences and those of her children, despite regular visits back to family in northern Italy.
It has been a taboo subject because of sensitivity surrounding Italian-born Ms Gandhi’s foreign origins.
A medical emergency last year had prevented Ms Gandhi from meeting British prime minister David Cameron, during his visit to New Delhi.
However, her absence from parliament in recent days at the start of the monsoon session and as it prepares to consider legislation on food security, land acquisition and prevention of communal violence had forced the explanation of her whereabouts.
The Congress Party said yesterday it had put a team of four people in place to steer the ruling party while she was convalescing from an operation to her abdomen, but it gave few details, describing the surgery as a “private affair”.
Mr Gandhi (41) is joined by loyalists AK Antony, the defence minister; Ahmed Patel, Ms Gandhi’s private secretary; and Janardhan Dwivedi, the party general secretary.
The selection is significant three years out from a parliamentary election.
The administration of prime minister Manmohan Singh (79) is battling corruption scandals that have sapped public confidence amid high prices and falling economic growth.
Some political analysts and Congress leaders expect Mr Singh to step aside for Mr Gandhi by the 2014 elections.
They say Ms Gandhi is likely to bypass other potential prime ministerial candidates such as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home affairs minister Palaniappan Chidambaram.
Others, however, say the elections in Uttar Pradesh next year, where Mr Gandhi campaigns as an MP and head of the Congress youth league, is the test for his suitability as a future national leader.
Digvijay Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and a Congress Party heavyweight, used Mr Gandhi’s birthday in June to declare that the son of Rajiv Gandhi, the assassinated former prime minister, was ready for the premiership.
He dismissed criticism that Mr Gandhi had not held executive office in government.
One senior Congress Party member said: “The team of four that she has announced is some statement of her lack of trust in P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee. She has always seen them as government representatives. These four persons picked are the party backbone.”
Ambika Soni, the information minister and a close ally of Ms Gandhi, said the party relied on her leadership and needed her back in New Delhi, India’s capital.
“We want her to be healthy, we want her to get well,” she said. “We want her to be back as soon as possible. We do realise how much we miss her.” – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)