Party`s wish to make Narendra Modi PM is a command for me: Shatrughan Sinha

Zee Media Bureau/Manisha Singh Patna: In a U-turn of sorts, BJP leader and actor Shatrughan Sinha, praised party`s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Monday and said that nobody could stop Gujarat Chief Minister from occupying the top post of the country. He told journalists here that the party`s wish to make Modi PM of the country was a command for him. He also said that everybody was together in the party. Sinha, who is a Member of Parliament from Patna Sahib, had boycotted BJP`s Goa conclave in June this year, reportedly expressing his solidarity with LK Advani, when Modi was named the party poll panel chief for 2014 General Elections. Advani had resigned from all party posts after Modi was named as the campaign committee chief. However, after persuasions by senior BJP and RSS leaders, he subsequently took them back. The 67-year-old is seen as belonging to the camp of the party patriarch. In August this year, the BJP MP had said in a TV interview that Advani was best suited to be party`s PM candidate for next Lok Sabha polls, given his experience and popularity. He had also said earlier that Modi should not have been party`s 2014 election committee chief. When asked about Modi`s growing popularity in the country, Shatrughan Sinha had said that if popularity was the criterion (to choose Gujarat CM) then Amitabh Bachchan should have been made the country`s president. Modi was anointed BJP`s PM candidate for 2014 last month, inspite of Advani`s opposition. The senior BJP leader had reportedly wanted the announcement to be postponed till elections in five states due to go to polls later this year got over. A sulking Advani did not attend the party`s parliamentary board meeting in the national capital when the decision on Modi was taken. Sinha had also created a flutter when in July he had told media-persons said that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was prime minister material and called him a mature politician and a good man. Meanwhile, the Gujarat strongman will address `Hunkar Rally` in Patna on October 27. This will be Modi`s first rally in Bihar since the JD(U) split from the BJP, breaking a seventeen-year old alliance. Modi was banned from campaigning in Bihar by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the 2010 Assembly elections which both the parties had fought together. Sinha will be sharing the dias with Modi at the rally to be held in Gandhi Maidan. He played down the fact that Advani was not going to attend the rally. "Many other BJP leaders will also not be coming to Patna for the rally on October 27 because of their prior engagements," he said.