Indians want young PM: poll
Updated at: 1435 PST, Friday, April 10, 2009
NEW DELHI: A majority of young Indians want a young prime minister and a significant number want Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi as premier after the April-May elections, according to a poll published Friday.
The survey carried by the Hindustan Times paper will make depressing reading for India's two main parties, both of who are fielding candidates for prime minister who in other walks of life would be well into their retirement.
The incumbent Congress party is fielding 76-year-old Manmohan Singh, who recently underwent heart bypass surgery. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is led by Lal Krishna Advani, who is 81.
Of the 1,211 people polled, 72 percent said India needed a "young prime minister," with 44 percent preferring a candidate between 35 to 45 years of age. Twenty-eight percent preferred the 38-year-old Rahul to his mother Sonia Gandhi and incumbent premier Singh, the poll by research organisation C-Fore found. The survey polled men and women in 18-35 age group in six cities across the country.
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