Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Amidst the growing hullabaloo within the Bharatiya Janata Party for declaring Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the next prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Monday urged the party members not to speculate or comment on the issue.
"I am appealing to all my leaders of BJP and workers not to speculate or give any statement on BJP's PM candidate,” the newly-elected BJP president said.
He further reiterated that only the BJP’s central parliamentary board can take a decision on the PM candidate. "If any decision is to be taken on PM candidature, only the central parliamentary board will decide, we should not speculate on this," Singh said.
His appeal came a day after VHP leader Ashok Singhal openly said Modi should be declared the PM candidate by the party.
"If people themselves are demanding that Modi should be made the PM candidate then 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," Singhal said.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha and noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani have last month openly endorsed Modi's name as prime ministerial candidate. The other BJP leaders have been so far evasive on this issue.
NDA allies like the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) have indicated that Modi's name is not acceptable to them.
The Shiv Sena had earlier said that Sushma Swaraj is its first choice for the prime ministerial candidate in 2014.
First Published: Monday, February 04, 2013, 13:34