An election loss will not be end of the world for us: Rahul Gandhi

The Congress vice-president sees a stint in Opposition as a way to recast the party

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The Congress party's vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, has said it will not be the end of the world if his party loses an election.

"The thirst of power is not in me. What is there is a desire to reduce pain as a result of a system that, I think, is predatory," Gandhi said in a TV interview, his first in about 10 years. He said he was not overly worried about the outcome of the general elections and would, in fact, view a stint in the Opposition as a way to recast the party.

Earlier, when a member of the Gujarat Congress had - after a closed-door meeting of party workers - quoted him as saying precisely this, the party had contradicted the member.

Asked if he was avoiding becoming prime minister because he did not want to take the responsibility, Gandhi contested this, saying he wanted to change processes that allowed arbitrary decisions by people elected to form the government.

Gandhi said he was "absolutely opposed" to the concept of a dynasty but conceded he could not wish away his origins. "I oppose a dynasty because it represents a closed system," he said, adding what he aimed to put in place was an open system, where interests preventing openness did not get a chance to operate.

Highlighting the importance of empowering citizens through the Right To Information (RTI), he said the law was a crucial tool for opening the system. But, he added, subjecting only political parties to RTI scrutiny, when the press and the judiciary were outside of it, defeated the purpose and introduced an element of imbalance in the system.

The Congress is opposed to bringing political parties under RTI.

Gandhi was unable to convincingly answer why former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan was being protected in the Adarsh housing scam case. Instead, he shifted the debate to why there was corruption in the first place - he attributed this to too much centralisation of power.

Asked how he could justify his party's possible alliance with individuals like Lalu Prasad, who had served a jail term on corruption charges, Gandhi said: "The Congress is not having an alliance with individuals but political parties."

"I'm being attacked because I am doing things that are dangerous to the system," he said in reply to a question on how he felt about Gujarat Chief Minister (and the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate) Narendra Modi's description of him as 'Shehzada'. "Attack me all you want. Throw stones at us. We are not here for power or to make money. I am sitting here to change the system." Gandhi said, emotionally.

Accusing the Modi-led Gujarat government for "abetting" a massacre in 2002, he said there was a difference between the riots in Gujarat and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. "In 1984, the government tried to stop the riots. In 2002, the government of Gujarat was complicit in them," he said, without mincing words.