BELGAUM, Apr 22: BJP President Rajnath Singh was today non committal over projecting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Parliamentary elections.
Speaking to reporters here, he said, ‘Mr Modi is most popular leader in the country at present. However, on who would be the next prime minister in the event of NDA gaining power in the next general elections, will be decided by the Parliamentary Board of the alliance.’
To a question on objections raised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over Mr Modi being projected as the next Prime Minister, Mr Singh said ‘in an alliance, minor problems come up. But we will solve them through discussions,’ he said without elaborating.
Mr Singh was in this North Karnataka district to campaign for the party for the May 5 Assembly election.
He slammed the UPA government of putting the country under great danger from external threats due to its ‘indecision’.
‘The Chinese soldiers have entered into Ladakh while the country continues to prowl in the Indian waters using its submarines. But the UPA government is unmoved.
‘Similarly Pakistan has handed over Gwadar port to the Chinese but the Union Government remained unconcerned,’ he claimed.
He said the end of UPA was imminent as it had totally failed to take the country forward and its economic policies were nothing short of a ‘disaster’.
The government and its leaders were neck deep in scams and big scandals like 2G spectrum and coalgate and it had no condition to seek votes from the people of Karnataka who were intelligent enough to understand its all-round failure, he said.
Mr Singh said the six-year long NDA rule under Atal Bihari Vajapayee was in complete contrast of the UPA failure as the alliance had ushered in a never seen pace economic development and the infrastructure projects taken up by the alliance will serve the country for long time to come.
In Karnataka, the BJP government had done a decent job offering various schemes to the poor and offering farmers zero per cent farm loans that no government in the country could offer.
‘However, we regret that there had to be changes in chief ministers and three of them ruled during the five years. The wrongs will be corrected and BJP is committed to providing transparent and corruption free government,’ he said.
He approved the working style of Chief Minister Jagdish Shettar who had proved that he was a good and honest administrator.
‘This is the reason we are projecting him as the chief ministerial candidate. BJP will certainly retain power in the state and win a clear majority this time,’ he claimed.
Rajya Shabha member Prabhakar Kore, Belgaum MP Suresh Angadi and other BJP leaders were present in the press conference.
(UNI)
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