04th February 2013

Even as BJP president Rajnath Singh on Sunday reiterated that the decision on the NDA’s PM candidate would be taken by the party’s Parliamentary Board, the issue continues to vex the alliance.

He conceded that at this stage it was hard to zero in on a candidate acceptable to the entire NDA.  However, when asked about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as  the likely candidate, he said Modi was a very capable and popular leader and claimed there was no dearth of such good leaders in the BJP.

VHP leaders had also joined the chorus for declaring Modi as the PM candidate.

“If people themselves are demanding that Modi should be made the PM candidate then the BJP will also have to think about it. Such a thing is happening for the first time. After all, the BJP president himself has said that Modi at present is their most popular leader,” VHP leader Ashok Singhal said.

The JD(U), a key NDA partner, has reservations about Modi being the PM candidate. The party’s national spokesperson Shivanand Tiwari had earlier taken a dig at the VHP, saying only political parties, and not sadhus, would decide on the prime ministerial candidate of the alliance. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was also quoted in an interview, which he later denied, as saying that he wanted the BJP to declare its candidate in advance.

Rajnath Singh told reporters in Bhopal that the tradition in the party was to decide on the PM candidate in the Central Parliamentary Board, as it happened before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when the board chose L K Advani for the top job.

Asked if there was any leader like AB Vajpayee who could be acceptable to both his party and the allies, the BJP president said no two persons in the world could be alike. He added that he would like his party to come to power after the 2014 general elections on its own, but assured that it would not forget the allies.

Modi is likely to visit the Kumbh festival in Allahabad in a few days.

source:http://newindianexpress.com