Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Rajnath Singh gag order on PM issue - TNN - The Times of India, New Delhi, India | Comment by Ghulam Muhammed

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/18341483.cms

My comments on Times of India story:

Rajnath Singh gag order on PM issue



Ghulam Muhammed (Mumbai)
If past has any relevance, BJP/RSS being caste-ist Brahmin outfits, there is hardly any chance for a non-Brahmin like Modi to become Prime Minister of India. At the most, he may follow L. K. Advani, and may be a candidate as Deputy Prime Minister in any future BJP led coalition government. People will not forget how non-Brahmins like Gandhi and Patel had to yield to a Brahmin Nehru, even in secular Congress. Besides, for BJP to make any meaningful success in garnering numbers, it has to concentrate on Uttar Pradesh. Naturally a PM candidate from UP, on the face of it, will attract more voters and therefore more MPs from Uttar Pradesh to make bulk of the tally. These are some of the hard facts that media should not paper over to build up false waves in the minds of general public.

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rajnath-Singh-gag-order-on-PM-issue/articleshow/18341483.cms

The Times of India

Rajnath Singh gag order on PM issue

TNN | Feb 5, 2013, 01.21 AM IST

Rajnath Singh gag order on PM issue
Singh's comments came in the wake of unease among sections within the party as well as ally JD(U) over the growing “Modi-for-PM” clamour.

NEW DELHI: BJP chief Rajnath Singh on Monday sought to put a lid on statements favouring Narendra Modi's projection as the party's choice for PM, only to see his "final appeal" being defied by two senior party leaders, C P Thakur and Shatrughan Sinha, within hours.

"I want to humbly appeal to BJP workers and leaders that there should be no statement from them on who will be the candidate for the prime minister's post. As I have said earlier, the BJP convention is that any decision on the chief ministerial or prime ministerial candidate is taken by the central parliamentary board," he told reporters.

Singh's comments came in the wake of unease among sections within the party as well as ally JD(U) over the growing "Modi-for-PM" clamour.

They were immediately welcomed by JD(U) chief and NDA convener Sharad Yadav who frowned upon the "mad rush" among NDA leaders to speak on the issue of the PM candidate. "I have never seen such a mad rush for prime ministership in the last six decades," Yadav complained.

JD(U), keen to keep its Muslim votes intact, is against Modi being made the NDA's prime ministerial candidate.

There were also indications that Modi's re-induction in the party's central parliamentary board may have to wait until at least the middle of March when the party will be able to hold the meeting of its national council, clubbing it with the session of the national executive.

Under the party constitution, election of the party chief and composition of parliamentary board has to be ratified by the national council. Although Rajnath Singh had initially planned to convene the national council earlier in Bhopal, logistical constraints forced him to put off the plan.

Modi, who was removed from the parliamentary board in 2007 by Singh in his first tenure as president, a call that he has publicly regretted, is set to retake his seat in the key body. His imminent re-induction, if along with his Madhya Pradesh counterpart, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has been billed by many as the first step towards his appointment as the chairman of the party's campaign committee and, possibly, a prime ministerial candidate.

A strong, and growing, section in the party has, in any case, come out in the open for Modi's projection as the party's choice for PM. This was clear again on Monday when Thakur, while insisting that the party chief had issued no gag order, strongly batted for the Gujarat CM. "BJP will gain (by declaring Modi's name). By declaring him the candidate, BJP will certainly gain because of many factors... There is a feeling among people that he should be the candidate," he said.

In Patna, Shatrughan Sinha backed Yashwant Sinha who had earlier pitched for Modi as BJP's PM candidate. "Yashwant Sinhaji is a senior and an experienced leader. He never talks light. He speaks only after going deeply into an issue, I stand with him on what he has said," Sinha told reporters