Manmohan "best" PM candidate, issue not negotiable: Rahul

New Delhi/Barmer, May 3 (PTI) In a ringing endorsement,
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Sunday said Manmohan Singh is the
party's "best" prime ministerial candidate and made it clear
this issue was non-negotiable and there can be no compromise.

Gandhi said both he as well as his mother and party
president Sonia Gandhi will stick with Manmohan as the prime
minister after the elections and that there was complete
unanimity in the Congress over the choice of the 76-year-old
leader just as in the case of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

"From my side, I know--and I do know my mother's views on
this--that he is the best prime ministerial candidate. He is
our candidate and we are going to stick by him like we did in
the case of the (Indo-US) nuclear deal," the scion of the
Nehru-Gandhi family told reporters in New Delhi.

Addressing a rally at Barmer in the western Indian state
of Rajasthan, Rahul also strongly batted for the prime
minister saying, "Manmohan Singh is our PM, he is UPA's PM."

The comments by the 38-year-old leader came a day after
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicated his willingness to
hand over power to a younger Congress leader.

"I have said Rahul Gandhi has all the qualities a good PM
should have. I certainly at some stage would like the seat of
power should be in the hands of younger people than I am,"
Singh told a TV channel Saturday.

Rahul said he was concerned over the results of the Lok
Sabha elections but stressed that there are "some issues in
which there can be no compromise."

"Of course, it would matter to us. It matters to me as a
General Secretary of the Congress party," Gandhi said when
asked by reporters whether it would matter to him if Congress
loses the elections since he is focussed on a long-term
perspective.

"But I am very clear that we need to take a longer-term
perspective. There are some issues in which there can be no
compromise. For instance, we could have said forget the
nuclear deal. But we did not take that approach. We persisted
with it. Pretty much all of us knew that our Government could
have fallen if we persisted with it," Rahul said in New Delhi.

Asked to comment on Left feeling a sense of betrayal by
the Congress, Rahul said he did not think so.

"I don't think the Left feels a sense of betrayal. They
have their point of view and we have ours. We are clear that
we are not going to compromise on what we think is the right
direction for the country and for the Congress," he added.

To a query about his assessment of how the Congress is
going to perform with three of the five phases in the
elections getting over, Rahul said, " We will improve our
tally. We will win and form the government."

The 2004 elections hinged on two or three factors while
the current election is more complicated, he said, adding that
he knew the states where the Congress was gaining like in
Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh.

Gandhi said irrespective of the performance of Congress
at the elections his is a longer-term view.

A very issue that is not immediately visible is the issue
of inclusion, he said, adding that in fact the country can
grow faster only by taking everyone along.

"We simply don't believe we can take this country forward
without inclusion. What we are talking about is a core idea--
that everybody should be part of the game--The BJP believes
that the poor, the Dalits and the minorities should not be
part of the game," he added.

The other long-term objective is democratisation of
politics. "We need to change this country fundamentally--from
centralisation of political power to democratisation." PTI