Rahul Gandhi, arguably India’s most eligible bachelor, on Wednesday said he was not interested in marriage, nor was he in the race for prime minister’s post despite his recent appointment as Congress vice president.
His appointment as the Congress vice president was widely regarded as a precursor for him to be the party’s candidate for the top job in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
In a rare conversation with Congress MPs and journalists in Parliament’s Central Hall, Rahul said he did not wish to tie the knot and start a family as doing so would lead him to develop a vested interest in the status quo at the expense of his mission to democratise the Congress and decentralise its decision-making.
“If I get married and have children, then I will become a status quo-ist and will be concerned about bequeathing my position to my children,” he said.
This was the first-ever confirmation of Rahul’s much-speculated disinclination to marry and start a family. Rahul had so far fended off questions about his marriage by saying people would get to know about his plans at the appropriate time.
He also denied rumors of his aspirations to be the prime minister of his country and lamented that Congress as well as other parties had degenerated into oligarchies where a tiny elite call the shots.
Asked about his interest in the prime minister’s job, he said, “Asking whether you want to be prime minister is to ask me a wrong question.”
The response defied the growing clamour from the ranks that he be declared the Congress’s candidate for prime minister in the 2014 polls.