Narendra Modi, party not separate, no infighting: BJP on Joshi`s remarks

Lucknow/Amethi: BJP on Monday sought to downplay Murli Manohar Joshi`s remarks that there was no Modi wave in the country but only a BJP wave, saying the party and Narendra Modi cannot be viewed separately and rejected suggestions of any infighting. BJP chief Rajnath Singh said that Joshi`s statement was wrongly interpreted. "No one has said anything like that. BJP has presented Modi as its Prime Minister candidate and in such a situation BJP wave or Modi wave cannot be viewed separately," Rajnath told reporters in Lucknow. "Modi is the most popular leader of the country and the people want to see him as PM," he said, adding, "We cannot see Modi and BJP separately. We all are part of BJP". The BJP national president said that the decision to declare Modi as the PM candidate was taken by the central parliamentary board. He stressed that BJP was a cadre based party. In subtle comments aimed at Modi, Joshi had yesterday said there was no Modi wave in the country but only a BJP wave. Joshi, who headed the BJP manifesto committee, also suggested that the Gujarat model of development touted by Modi cannot be made applicable for all states, observing he did not favour a "straitjacket" model of one particular state. But Rajnath today said that even Modi had not said so. In Amethi, party vice president Smriti Irani denied that the remarks reflected the differences between the leaders. "There is no infighting in the party at all," she said, adding that "the way Dr Joshi gives blessings is different from others". Joshi, who had to make way for Modi for the Varanasi Parliamentary seat, said their PM candidate was just a "representative" of the party for the top post and was getting support from across the country and BJP leaders. "Modi is a representative of the party as a PM candidate...So it is not a highly personalised thing (the wave). It is a representative wave. "He gets support from different parts of the country, from sections of the society and from all leaders of the BJP," he had told "Manorama News" in controversial remarks. Asked if the party would consider dropping Modi`s name from its slogan from `Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar` and replace it with BJP or NDA, Rajnath Singh today said it was "natural to have Modi`s name in the party slogan as he has been projected as the pime ministerial candidate". On a question related to making public the communication between the then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and Modi in the year 2002, Rajnath said that as far as timing was concerned, the Election Commission was there to look into it. "The biggest communal party is Congress," he alleged. Regarding Amit Shah being banned from campaigning in UP, he said, "As far as I understand he has not said anything to incite communal passion. We don`t believe in communal polarisation in the interest of healthy democracy."