BJP leaders defy party chief’s warnings; senior leaders CP Thakur and Shatrughan Sinha join in demand for naming Guj CM as BJP’s PM candidate
The clamour for announcing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s name as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate got shriller on Monday, ironically after BJP president Rajnath Singh’s virtual gag order to partymen on the subject.
Former Bihar BJP chief CP Thakur and another Bihar BJP leader and former Union minister Shatrughan Sinha voiced their support for Modi’s candidature. “BJP will gain (by declaring Modi the candidate)... There is a feeling among the people that he should be the candidate,” Thakur said.
Shatrughan Sinha backedYashwant Sinha who had earlier openly pitched for declaring Modi as BJP’s PM candidate.
Thakur and Shatrughan are only the latest in a long line of leaders in BJP to publicly support Modi’s candidature for PM post in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Senior party leaders like Yashwant Sinha and Ram Jethmalani kicked off the debate last week by publicly supporting Modi’s candidature for country’s top job. It was followed by several others who reacted to the debate in the media. All this has caused discomfort to its prominent Bihar ally, Janata Dal (United)’s. JD(U) made no bones about it.
