Rahul Gandhi and India: Watery sunrise IT IS an irony of Indian politics that the man who could have taken over as prime minister at any point in the past five years has never wanted the job. Rahul Gandhi is the 43-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated the ruling Congress party for most of a century. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, the party president, is the political boss of the deferential prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Mr Singh had repeatedly made clear that he would step down the moment he got a nod from Mr Gandhi that he was ready. It never came. At a press conference on January 3rd (only Mr Singh's third in a decade), the 81-year-old prime minister at last said he would retire at a general election, expected in April. He urged voters to make Mr Gandhi national leader. The younger man, in a rare interview with a Hindi daily paper on January 14th, modestly said he would "follow whatever orders" Congress gives. That lukewarm phrase has been widely interpreted to mean Mr Gandhi is ready at last - but first his party must manage to win the vote. Sonia's son has already been pulled high up the greasy pole, even as he laments the rise. In January 2013 he was appointed as Congress vice-president, in effect second-in-command to his mother, who is thought to be ill with cancer. Then and since, he has talked of power as a "poison," reflecting on how his mother turned down the chance to become prime minister in 2004, and how his father, Rajiv Gandhi, resisted politics until well into adulthood. Mr Gandhi probably means it when he says he is not cut out for politics. It is hard to discern any coherent strategy in his past five years. Speak to advisers, ministers, party workers and others who spend time with him, and the impression emerges of a decent man, shy in public, keen on development work and out of place in the snake-pit of politics. Even many of his own constituents appear fed up with him as their MP: he will have to fight to keep his seat in Amethi, in Uttar Pradesh (UP). His "passions," say those close to him, include tinkering with the structure of Congress's youth wing to make it more democratic, crowd-sourcing the party manifesto, and a big, but largely unnoticed, women's microfinance project in UP. Unlike Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr Gandhi shows no hunger for nationwide office, nor much sense of what he would do if he won it. "The nitty gritty of governance has not been for him," accepts one supporter in government, conceding, too, that he shows little appetite for the coming election. Nonetheless, on January 17th a national gathering of the Congress party was expected to pick Mr Gandhi as its campaign leader. Wrangling over whether also to name him as candidate for prime minister persisted to the eve of the meeting. Mrs Gandhi had vowed in December that the party would nominate a candidate, presumably her son. Since then Congress's prospects have fallen lower than ever. The party should expect even fewer seats than its lowest-ever previous toll of 114 (out of 543) in 1999. If that happened, Mr Gandhi would presumably blame the outgoing government and focus on revamping his party. But it is unclear how he would handle defeat personally. After he oversaw a feeble showing for Congress in the UP state assembly elections, early in 2012, he disappeared from public for months, leading to speculation that he had given up on politics. Nor have his efforts to democratise Congress's youth wing produced the desired results. Offspring of powerful party figures have often ended up winning the intraparty polls that were supposed to encourage bright young leaders on merit. The biggest single problem for Mr Gandhi, however, has been the rise of the Common Man or "Aam Aadmi" Party (AAP), which burst from a popular anti-corruption movement. It devastated Congress in the Delhi state-assembly election in December, and is gathering momentum nationwide. It boasted this week of recruiting 1m new members in just four days, and aims, plausibly, for 10m before February. Its leaders say (vaguely, but with feeling) that India can rid itself of corruption and that ordinary folk, through referendums and public meetings, can help to set policy. It has proved far more adept than Congress at using the internet, mobile phones and volunteers. Its main leader, Arvind Kejriwal, who is 45, is more popular among young Indians than Congress's vice-president. Like Mr Modi, he is a skilled public speaker. A few glimmers of hope exist for Mr Gandhi. As Congress's stock has fallen, he has proved readier to speak out on controversial issues, and seems set on bashing his own government over corruption. In December he bravely opposed a Supreme Court ruling that recriminalised homosexuality. In September he forced the government to reverse a scheme to let convicted politicians hold office. He now supports plans for tough anti-corruption bodies. The rise of AAP also hits Mr Modi's prospects in urban seats, reducing his chances of forming a strong BJP administration. But that is cold comfort. Mr Gandhi must learn to appeal as a national leader and get through a tough election likely to end in failure. That could reveal in him a hunger for office he has hitherto seemed to lack. But by then it may be too late.