Sinha endorses Modi as BJP’s PM candidate

Agencies/New Delhi

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi won crucial backing yesterday to run for prime minister, boosting his campaign to lead his Bharatiya Janata Party into elections in 2014.

Modi is widely seen as pushing to be his party’s candidate.

Former finance and foreign minister Yashwant Sinha gave his vote of approval a day after Modi met the party’s newly-elected president Rajnath Singh behind closed doors.

“Wherever I have visited, ordinary people as well as party workers have expressed the demand that the BJP should put up Modi as its prime ministerial candidate,” Sinha, a senior BJP leader, told reporters.

“I too have come to the conclusion that if the BJP makes Modi its official candidate for the post, then the party will greatly benefit,” he said.

The BJP is scouting around for a vote-winning candidate to take on the ruling Congress Party, which has been weakened by slowing economic growth and corruption scandals.

However, the party president said BJP’s parliamentary board will take a decision on the matter, while former party chief M Venkaiah Naidu said Sinha was only expressing a personal view.

Asked if its ally Janata Dal-United (JD-U) would agree to the choice of Modi, Sinha said he was reflecting the mood of the people and partners should accept it.

“I am reflecting the mood of the country, and the mood of the BJP. The JD-U is a different party. My personal view is that if the BJP leadership were to project a prime ministerial candidate, other partners should accept that and not make an issue of it,” Sinha said.

“I refuse to accept the theory that some people in the BJP are secular and some are communal... that is a flawed argument I refuse to accept.”

Sinha’s comments came just days after a poll suggested Congress’s likely prime ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi was less popular than Modi.

Gandhi is widely expected to lead Congress into the polls after being elevated to the post of party vice-president earlier this month.