New Delhi: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling Union Minister Kalraj Mishra a good friend at the Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive meeting in Allahabad, reports are doing the rounds that the senior BJP leader might be projected as party's chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2017.
According to a News18 report, the Prime Minister said, "Kalraj Mishra is my old friend. He is the first national leader in the party and in the Jansangh who I met."
PM Modi's impromptu words for Mishra have sparked speculation on whether BJP is planning to project an upper caste face for the crucial UP polls.
As the fight for the CM candidate is gaining momentum, hundreds of posters of BJP leader Varun Gandhi were put up in Allahabad to make sure that Sultanpur MP's candidacy is not overlooked, if the party is looking for a face to project in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections early next year.
However, the move did not go down well with the party`s central leadership.
After noticing the posters on Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah asked for a report on the issue and it was found out that two local party workers, who supported Gandhi, were involved in the act of putting hundreds of hoardings and posters in the city.
Another probable candidate might be Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who was the last BJP CM when the party was in power in the Hindi heartland.
However, Singh has repeatedly denied coming back to state politics.
