Rahul will lead Cong in next polls: AICC

Rahul Gandhi will lead Congress in the next Lok Sabha elections and is the "most appropriate" prime ministerial candidate, AICC said, a day after he distanced himself from such talk.

"As and when the time will come, the party will take an appropriate decision, as you said he (Rahul) is the most appropriate candidate. It is not the party's policy to announce the leader beforehand", party spokesman Sandeep Dikshit told reporters.

He said that the Congress vice-president is heading the party's campaign committee and will lead the party in the polls and decide the strategy. The Congress Parliamentary Party and the Congress high command will decide whether he would be the prime minister, he said.

His reaction came when asked to comment on the remarks of 42-year-old Gandhi, widely seen to be the party's PM candidate, that asking him whether he wanted to be prime minister is a "wrong question".

The Congress vice-president had made this suo motu remark on Tuesda while interacting with party MPs amid growing clamour in the party for annointing him as the party's prime ministerial face before the next Lok Sabha elections.

He had told the MPs in no uncertain terms that the organisation was his priority and he was preparing for a long haul.

Gandhi gave ample signals that he wanted to change the organisation drastically from top to bottom and his ideal was Mahatma Gandhi and he believed in the "Nishkam Karma" of the Gita.