Bhopal: Congress General Secretary Digvijay
Singh on Sunday said that Rahul Gandhi was now a mature person
with sound political instincts and can become the Prime
Minister.
"I think it is time that Rahul can become the Prime
Minister," Singh said, talking to PTI.
"Rahul is now 40 and he has been working for the party
for the last seven to eight years," Singh said.
The scion of the Gandhi family had the right qualities,
instincts and experience to take up the mantle of prime
minister-ship now, Singh said.
He rejected the contention that he was doing the politics
of minority appeasement. When he was the Chief Minister of
Madhya Pradesh, he had taken action against both the SIMI as
well as the Bajrang Dal, Singh pointed out.
"When Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is felicitated
by Muslims, that is not called appeasement, but when I went to
Azamgarh, I was opposed by the Ulema council on one hand and
RSS-BJP on the other."
About another former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma
Bharti, who recently returned to BJP, Singh said it must not
be forgotten that she once maintained that she would not be
"true to her parents" if she went back to the party.
Singh added that he had prophesied the day Uma was
expelled that she would return to BJP, as she would not find
shelter anywhere else.
On the current rift between the government and the civil
society over the Lokpal Bill, Singh said that non-elected
members of society can never be equated with elected
representatives, but the former`s views have to be kept in
mind.
That is why Congress President Sonia Gandhi included
members of the civil society in the National Advisory Council,
he said.
Eminent people like Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and Harsh
Mander, who had been been leading members of the civil
society, were a part of the process of drafting of Lokpal
Bill, he pointed out.
Singh said that since the UPA government was sensitive
to corruption, it also included people like Shanti Bhushan and
Arvind Kejriwal into the drafting committee, though they were
known to be anti-Congress.
PTI
