TDP Lawmaker Diwakar Reddy advises Sonia Gandhi on Rahul as PM
A lawmaker of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), JC Diwakar Reddy, has said he had once suggested to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi that her son and Congress president Rahul Gandhi should be "married to a Brahmin girl", so that he could become prime minister.
Mr Reddy, a former Congress leader, made the comment while addressing a public gathering in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. He also had an explanation.
"When I was in the Congress I suggested to Sonia Gandhi that if Rahul wants to be the prime minister in 2014, he needs support of UP Brahmins. The Brahmin community is ruling in UP. That is why I suggested to her that get Rahul married to a good Brahmin girl. But Sonia Gandhi didn't listen to me," he said.
Mr Reddy, who won from the Anantapur parliamentary seat in Andhra Pradesh, has won six times on a Congress party ticket but he joined Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's TDP ahead of the 2014 national election.