Congress may not name Rahul Gandhi as candidate for PM on January 17.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi unlikely to be announced as Congress's PM candidate:

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi is unlikely to be announced as Congress's prime ministerial candidate on January 17 or any time soon. The big, immediate change in Congress is not Rahul's elevation but his sister, Priyanka Gandhi, taking a far larger and critical role in the party, including greater involvement in national electoral planning. But she will not take a formal post in the party even as her political work extends beyond helping her brother and mother manage their constituencies.

There's also no likely change in Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's personal Lok Sabha battle plans. They will stand, respectively, from Amethi and Rae Bareli, the two traditional Nehru-Gandhi constituencies in UP.

Following Aam Aadmi Party's Kumar Vishwas' aggressive foray in Amethi, there had been reports that Rahul Gandhi may look for a second constituency. But the Gandhi scion is likely to stick to his traditional seat.

Key Congress leaders at senior and critical strategy-making positions in the party told ET, on the condition they not be identified, that "thinking at the highest level" is not in favour of announcing Rahul Gandhi as the PM candidate any time soon. If there's a rethink, these leaders said, it can always be "done later".

They also said Priyanka Gandhi playing a larger strategic and planning role is a key part of Congress' 2014 strategy. Her involvement has been going up since the assembly elections, a Congress leader said, and it will go up even more, he added.

A number of senior Congress ministers, P Chidambaram and Manish Tiwari among them, had publicly called for Rahul Gandhi's elevation. Senior Congress strategists ET spoke to say they expect party rank and file to express a strong demand for Rahul Gandhi's elevation.

"There may be some "commotion and drama on January 17", a senior functionary said. But he added, "there is unlikely to be any significant announcement".As Per 'economictimes'

AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh had last week said there was no need for the party to declare a prime ministerial candidate before the elections.

Meanwhile, Rahul attended the meeting of the Congress Core Group ahead of Thursday's Working Committee meeting. It lasted two hours.

"Rahul is among the top three leaders. He is the principal campaigner whose leadership will strengthen the party", party spokesman Sandip Dikshit told reporters in reply to a volley of questions on the issue of PM candidate of the party.

At the same time, he said that one cannot predict what AICC will decide. "AICC is a large body. Sometimes people's opinion becomes party's policy. You cannot predict what AICC will do".

"Opinions of senior leaders will help party come to conclusions-appropriate and correct", he said when asked about party leader Digvijay Singh's advocating caution on the issue.

"High command has to decide when and who?", Dikshit said when asked whether the AICC meeting was an opportune moment to reveal its PM candidate.

"They (Bhartiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmin Party) are fighting for the number two position", Dikshit remarked when asked whether Congress is afraid of naming Rahul as PM candidate in view of the AAP claim that the fight for power was on between the BJP and AAP and Congress is nowhere in the picture.

At the AICC briefing, Union Minister V Narayansamy recalled that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that Rahul had all the qualities to become the PM candidate.

The CWC meeting is likely finalise the resolution that will come up before the AICC meet being held at a time when the Lok Sabha polls are just four months away. News By 'indiatoday'

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