Rahul can get the top job if Congress manages the magic number in 2014 elections

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi may have called the incessant speculation about his becoming the prime minister as "smoke", but this does not extinguish the possibility of his getting the top political job if Congress manages to muster the required numbers in 2014 elections.

Referring to the repeated talk about his becoming the PM — so a source of major controversy in Congress — the party vice-president said, "These are irrelevant questions. It's all smoke....". However, party circles insisted that the professed indifference to the PM's post did not contradict the Rahul's denial of reports that he had ruled himself out of the leadership race.

The denial, put out by Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, had come after Rahul agreed with the suggestion that he should not write himself off as a possible prime minister.

Far from dispirited by party vice-president's disinterest, Congress saw it as performing the tactical purpose of countering the perception about the 2014 elections turning into a Rahul versus Narendra Modi tussle. Congress is keen to avoid the impression of a direct showdown between their leader and Narendra Modi at a juncture when the ground situation does not seem to be very conducive to Congress, courtesy the scams, inflation and economic slowdown.

In his interaction with business leaders, Rahul avoided touching upon the factors which have sapped the confidence of the industry, as he cast himself again as someone who was outside the compromised political system.

While the "outsider" attack drew criticism with many pointing out that he has been a member of Parliament for nine years, Congress defended Rahul. Party spokesperson P C Chacko said that he was taking a review of policies so far.

Chacko also denied that Congress was apprehensive of Rahul versus Modi duel . "With one single appearance in public today, Rahul has shown that nobody can be compared with him... Rahul's vision and Rahul's ideas, I don't think Modi or anybody can come near to that and comparisons are done by someone who is interested in propping up Modi," he said.

According to party leaders, the playing down of leadership issue is strategic as talking about it now when the Central government has one more year to go, would destabilize the Manmohan Singh dispensation.