Don't have such visions, says Rahul on prime ministership

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said he does not have any vision of becoming the prime minister and noted that the question of leadership will be decided only after the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

"Conversations (with the Opposition parties) on leadership, are going to happen after the elections, after we have pushed BJP and the RSS back," Gandhi said during his interaction with the Indian Journalists' Association here.

On being asked about alliances in West Bengal, Gandhi said: "You are asking me strategic questions. We are working out a broad coalition. In Bengal, we have an organisation. I tend towards asking my unit in Bengal and letting them decide. We are having those conversations. So, it's not decided yet."

"But the emphasis is... and there is a consensus among pretty much all leaders of the Opposition that the RSS is threatening the institutional order of India. They are systematically attacking organisations, and putting their people into them," he added.

"Four judges of Supreme Court have come out and said it that they were not allowed to work and they named the Loya case. We are defending that line," he also said.

Asked if he saw himself as the prime minister in 2019, Gandhi said: "I don't have these visions. I don't see myself... I view myself fighting an ideological battle. This is really the change that has come in me after 2014."

"I realised after 2014 that there is a risk to the Indian state, to the Indian way of doing things. I am defending that... how do I defend Indian institutional structures," he added.

--IANS

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