No question of retirement: PM

No question of retirement: PM
PTI
NEW DELHI, MAY 24
Just into his seventh year in office, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today ruled out retirement since his tasks remain “unfinished” but offered to make way for a younger leader if the Congress party wanted that.
At a 75-minute press conference, his third in the capital since he first became the Prime Minister in 2004, Singh scotched speculation of “mistrust and distrust” between him and party President Sonia Gandhi, saying that there was “not an iota of truth” in that.
“No question of gap in thinking between me and the Congress President,” he said, pointing out that a coordination mechanism in already in place, meeting every week to take Sonia Gandhi’s advice.
He was asked whether he would make way for Rahul Gandhi to take over during his current tenure which will end in 2014 and whether the thought of retirement came to his mind.
In a carefully-crafted response, Singh told over 700 journalists, “I have been given this task (of Prime Ministership). It is still unfinished. Till I finish the tasks, there is no question of retirement.”
At the same time, he said he himself felt sometimes that younger people should take over. “As and when, the Congress party makes that judgement, I will be very happy to make place for anybody chosen by the party,” he said.
At another point, the 77-year-old leader said Rahul Gandhi was “very qualified” to join his Cabinet and he had talked to him about it several times but the young leader wanted to focus more on building the party.
“Whenever he (Rahul) is ready, he would be an appropriate addition to the Cabinet,” the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister also rejected the suggestion that the National Advisory Council (NAC) revived after lying in limbo for over three years, with Sonia Gandhi again as its chairperson, would hinder the government’s work as a “super cabinet,” asserting that it is no super cabinet but an advisory body that helps in getting important inputs of the civil society.
Asked in a lighten vein as to whose advice he would weigh more and act upon it, his wife Gursharan Kaur’s or Sonia Gandhi’s, Dr Manmohan Singh quipped that he was privileged to have benefit of advice by both, but hastened to add that “both deal different subjects and I welcome advice from both.”
During the press conference that was telecast live nationwide and that coincided with the completion of one year of UPA-II, Singh answered questions on a range of issues including price rise, naxalism, terrorism and relations with Pakistan.