Congress president Rahul Gandhi has claimed that he will be prime minister in 2019 if the Congress emerges as the single largest party. The Nehru-Gandhi scion’s comments mark a 180-degree turnaround from the stand he had taken five years ago.

Till recently, Rahul Gandhi never showed any inclination towards taking up even a ministerial responsibility. He gave the impression of being focused only in strengthening the Congress party as an organisation.

Secondly, the Congress president has generally favoured selection of a prime ministerial or chief ministerial candidate by the elected representatives of the people.

That is the reason why Rahul Gandhi’s claim to the prime minister’s post was against the very line he had taken so far.

Cut to January 20, 2013. In the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Jaipur, Rahul Gandhi was elevated to the post of party vice-president. He was one of the national general secretaries till then.

He delivered a moving acceptance speech in which he talked about the famous lines of power being like poison.

Rahul Gandhi said, “Last night my mother came to my room and she sat with me and she cried. Why did she cry? She cried because she understands that the power so many seek is actually a poison. She can see it because of what it does to the people around her and the people they love. But most importantly she can see it because she is not attached to it.”

“The only antidote to this poison is for all of us to see it for what it really is and not become attached to it. We should not chase power for the attributes of power. We should only use it to empower the voiceless. In our work – it is my mother’s experience of a lifetime, it is my experience of eight years and I am sure many of you here who deal with power.”

Rahul Gandhi appeared sincere when he talked about power being poison. He had declined to be a minister in the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet.

Manmohan Singh offered him a ministerial berth on several occasions – before and after the AICC’s Jaipur session.

In September 2012, while returning from Tehran, Manmohan Singh told reporters that he always favoured a more active role for Rahul in government. He invited him to be a member of the cabinet on several occasions but only to be declined.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, who was considered to be close to Rahul Gandhi, had also requested the latter to accept a ministerial berth but to no avail.

Rahul Gandhi’s position on the prime ministerial candidate was also different from what it appears to be today. A few months before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he had favoured election of a prime ministerial by the elected Lok Sabha MPs.

Speaking in January 2014 on the question of Congress’s prime ministerial candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections then, he had said, “We are a democratic organisation. We have faith in democracy. The people of India will decide through their elected representatives, who will be the prime minister of the country. It is necessary for Congress to come to power in the interests of the nation and for that whatever responsibility the organisation has given me or will give me, I will carry out that with full dedication.”

Calling himself a “sepoy of the Congress”, he had said he would obey whatever order was given to him by the Congress as decisions are taken by senior party leaders.

He had contrasted the Congress’s tradition with that of the BJP and mocked the latter for wanting to have a “personality-oriented rule” and which was not in the interests of the country.

Rahul has so far refused to head the Congress in the Lok Sabha despite being the party’s president or even when he was the vice-president.

But Rahul Gandhi seems to have taken a U-turn on the question of a prime ministerial candidate. This has now been mocked by his adversaries.

Addressing an election rally in Kolar, Karnataka, PM Modi took a jibe at Rahul calling him “arrogant naamdaar”. Without naming Rahul, the PM said he came like those bullies, barging his way ahead when there are others who have many years of experience. “How can someone just declare himself as the PM? This is simply nothing but arrogance,” Modi said.

Rahul Gandhi has taken an about turn from the day he had termed power as poison. Now it seems power for him is a passion.