Rahul is going to be a new leader, says Pranab

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee participates
 in “Maha Ashtami” puja of goddess Durga
 at his ancestral home in Miriti, Birbhum district of West Bengal,
 on Tuesday.






Source :The Hindu :PTI :MIRITI (WEST BENGAL), October 5, 2011
Photo    : PTI

Rahul Gandhi is going to be a “new leader” of the Congress, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday.

“So far as the Congress is concerned, the party is always having a new leadership. Rahul Gandhi is going to be a new leader,” he told journalists here, replying to a question whether it would follow the BJP in focussing on new faces as future leaders.

“What the BJP is doing is their internal matter,” the senior Congress leader said, adding he would not like to comment on the internal problems of that party involving L K Advani or anyone else.

Mr. Mukherjee's statement is considered significant given that Congress leaders have hailed Mr. Gandhi as the party's future leader and potential Prime Minister.

As for the BJP's record in the recent Assembly elections in various States, Mr. Mukherjee asked: “What is their performance? In the last elections, they had fought in more than 725 seats. How many have they won? Let us see their performance in the coming elections.”

Mr. Mukherjee told NDTV at his ancestral home that the differences between him and Home Minister P. Chidambaram were a “closed chapter,” and asserted that the government “is in command of things.”

“Myself and Mr Chidambaram addressed the media [following the controversy over the Finance Ministry's office memorandum to the Prime Minister's Office on the 2G spectrum issue] and the chapter is closed and he [Chidambaram] admitted it. So there is no question......”

Mr. Mukherjee admitted that in a multiparty political system, there could be “differences sometimes” in the party.

He was asked whether the “public making up” between him and Mr. Chidambaram signalled the end of the rift.

To a question about the impression that there were “serious cracks” in the government and it was a “house divided” that would collapse anytime, the Minister said: “If you go by the classical theory of the opposition, the role of the opposition is [to] oppose, expose and depose, if possible.”