PM candidature: Manish Tewari calls BJP leaders 'chronic delusionites'

Taking a dig at BJP president Rajnath Singh over his appeal to colleagues not to air opinions regarding the party's prime ministerial nominee, information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari on Tuesday said such home remedies cannot treat "chronic delusionites".

Tewari made this comment in a early morning post on the social networking site Twitter.

"Even Rajnath Singhji's home remedies can't treat the chronic delusionites his esteemed colleagues suffer from. Fantansyland is addictive place," Tewari said.

In a bid to put down partymen airing views on its prime ministerial candidate, the BJP President had on Monday issued a virtual gag order on the issue which was breached by two leaders from Bihar pitching for Narendra Modi.

Concerned over party leaders voicing their opinion in public and the fissures within NDA on the issue of declaring Gujarat chief minister as BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Singh had made a "final appeal" to his party leaders not to speak on the issue.

"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 had said.

Singh had issued a similar directive earlier but it seems to have had little impact on the BJP leaders.

No sooner had Singh issued his directive, former Bihar BJP chief CP Thakur had reiterated his support for Modi as the PM candidate, saying the party would gain from it.

Insisting that Singh has not issued a gag order, Thakur had said, "BJP will gain (by declaring Modi the candidate). By declaring him (Modi) the candidate BJP will certainly gain because of many factors... There is a feeling among the people that he should be the candidate."

Another BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha had backed party colleague Yashwant Sinha who has openly pitched for declaring Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.

"Yashwant Sinhaji is a senior and an experienced leader. He never talks light. He speaks only after giving deep thought on an issue, I stand with him on what he has said," Sinha had said.