Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has said that he would like Rahul Gandhi to continue working for the party and not join the government for the moment.
“I want Rahul to take a larger role and prepare the Congress party for the 2014 general elections as our leader, I do not want him to join the government,” said Singh, in an exclusive interview to Swati Chaturvedi of Zeenews.com on her chat show Kahiye Janab.
Asked where he sees himself in the ‘Rahul Gandhi Era’ of the Congress party, he said, “Digvijay Singh has turned 65. The country is young where 60 percent of the voters are below 35 years of age, so in such times people like us should retire.”
When pressed if he was announcing his retirement Singh laughed and said that “you will have to wait a little bit longer”.
On Rahul Gandhi’s fading aura Singh said, “Rahul creates an environment which is positive for the Congress but he can’t get voters to the polling booth.”
When asked if the ‘cautious palace courtiers’ of the Congress denied Rahul his candidacy as Uttar Pradesh CM and whether it would have improved the Congress’s prospect in the state, Singh said, “It is but natural for Rahul to have his interest in Uttar Pradesh politics, because that is his home state, from where he has been elected to the Lok Sabha, but the party does not see him as the CM of UP, we see him as a national leader.”
On Gandhi family Singh said that “this is a family who’s always given to the country. From 1947 to 2012 they have mostly been in power, despite this they were not accused of corruption or money laundering. A false charge of Bofors was imposed but that too could not be proved, even by a non Congress government which was in power then”.
“I repeat that Baba Ramdev is a mercenary and a thug; he talks of other peoples black money let him give his own,” Singh said, adding that one of the most respected yoga practitioners, B K S Iyengar has said “Baba Ramdev does not know yoga”.
