The big takeaway from Rahul Gandhi's address to students at the University of California, Berkeley: The Congress VP indicated today that he is open to being the Congress's Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2019 national election.  Asked by the moderator if he was ready to be the prime ministerial candidate of the Congress party, Rahul said, "I am absolutely ready to do that....We have an organisational party that decides that and that process is currently ongoing...That decision is something the Congress party should make.

Rahul is in the US for a two-week tour.

He also said that when the UPA, led by the Congress, was in power, he had worked with former prime minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders like P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh to resolve the problems facing Jammu and Kashmir for nine years.

"For nine years, I worked behind the scenes with former prime minister Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and others on Jammu and Kashmir. When we started, terrorism was rampant in Kashmir, when we finished there was peace, we had broken the back of terrorism. By 2013, we basically broke the back of terror, I hugged then prime minister Manmohan Singh and told him it was one of the biggest achievements," he added.

He further said that the PDP had been instrumental in bringing youngsters in politics, but the day Prime Minister Modi made alliance with the PDP, he destroyed them.