Is Rahul Gandhi a PM candidate in India?

Indians bated with breath for days to know whether the scion of the famous Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty will be a candidate for the next premiership of India in the coming elections. The main opposition in India, BJP, has already announced its nominee for the position.
With hardly three months left for the polls, the ruling Congress sought finally to set at rest speculations about him, saying he is not up for that position. Instead, the party, of which Rahul's mother Sonia Gandhi is the chief and Rahul is the vice-president, would be in charge of the electoral campaign, said the Congress.
Reports said that several party leaders wanted Rahul to be named as the nominee for the premiership, but Sonia Gandhi disapproved the proposal. However, the Congress also made it clear that it is not in its tradition to announce someone as the hopeful about the post of the head of the government, unlike what opposition BJP has done by naming Narendra Modi for the job.
Now the question that comes on top of the mind automatically:
is Rahul Gandhi out of the race for the post of India's prime minister if the Congress-led ruling UPA alliance is voted back to power?  The answer can be interpreted in both ways.
But a close examination of the issue would suggest that the Congress has not taken any decision whether the 42-year-old bachelor son of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi will be the prime minister or not, in the event of party's coming back to power. What the party has clearly said that it is not the practice of the organization to name any party nominee for that post before the general elections. Evidently, a certain degree of ambiguity exists about the matter and analysts would like to believe that Rahul has not been ruled out for the job if opportunity emerges in his favour.
India, the largest democracy in the world, is going to the national elections from mid-April this year, in  a voting that is expected to be a litmus test for the ruling Congress and its allies. The polls that will be staggered because of the vastness of the country, are becoming quite interesting since opposition leader Narendra Modi has thrown a formidable challenge to the ruling UPA alliance for the next voting.
Incumbent prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said that he would not be a candidate for the post of the head of the government any longer even if his Congress party wins the elections.
Recently, the Congress lost state assembly elections in four of the five states and this has dampened the chances of the party for a good performance in the 2014 national polls. Particularly, the loss of the state of Delhi has been a big disaster as the Congress has been relegated to a distant third position after being in power there for two uninterrupted terms. Two important states - Madhya Pradesh and Rajsthan were already in the grip of the BJP - and it has now strengthened further its position in both these states.
Earlier, the results of the five state-assembly elections had come as a big disappointment for the ruling Congress at the centre. The results that saw a poor performance by the Congress that leads a rainbow coalition at the federal government are particularly a big setback for party president Sonia Gandhi and more so for her son, Rahul Gandhi, largely seen as the future prime minister of the country.
India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, which elects the maximum number of state-wise members of the federal parliament, was the attraction of all eyes in the recent polls as the Congress was desperate to stage a comeback to its old citadel. The state has also special significance for Sonia-Rahul as their Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty comes from there.
Besides, Uttar Pradesh has produced most of the prime ministers of world's largest democracy. As such, the Congress and especially its youthful leader, Rahul, spared no efforts to drum up support for the organisation in this crucially important state to regain the old glory. Important figures of the political dynasty - first premier of independent India Jawharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi - all became the prime ministers.
But the strength of the Congress in the state has been on the decline for last several years. The party has not been able to win much number of seats either in the federal parliament or in the state assembly. Both Sonia and Rahul were keen to improve the image of the party in their state for obvious reasons. Frankly, none really expected the party to win the polls there, but enormous scope existed for improving its position. Unforunately for Congress, that has not happened and sadly, it came fourth after the Samajwadi Party, ruling Bhujan Samaj party(BSP) and the Bharatiya Janna party (BJP).Worse, the Congrss lost seats in the constituencies of Sonia and Rahul - Rai Baerelly and Amethi respectively that had returned them with a big margin to the Lokshaba, the federal parliament.
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is somewhat in a difficult situation mainly because of a number of scandals related to corruption. The results could be seen as a reflection of the popularity of the federal authority, although state-level polls in India are fought largely on different platforms.
The poor performance by the Congress in the state assembly polls in two phases gives a signal that the influence of the party is on the wane. Nevertheless, this can be seen as a wake-up call and the Congress may repair the lost ground to some extent at the national polls even though an increasingly strong challenge by BJP prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi is causing a big headache for the ruling circles.
With Manmohan Singh being no longer in the picture and none else as such in the Congress seen yet willing, at least publicly, to take over that position, it is plausible to think that Rahul, in all likelihood, would be the prime minister, if the party succeeds in returning itself to power.
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