Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav said on Sunday that the appointment of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as campaign committee chief of the BJP was the ‘internal matter’ of the BJP.
Yadav, who is also the NDA convener, said that the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate will be decided in consultation with all parties who are part of the NDA. “He (Modi) has not become the NDA’s campaign committee chairman,” Yadav said.
“What the BJP decides is the party’s internal matter, whom they make the party president or chairman of a particular committee in their party is their concern,” Yadav said. The NDA functioned for 17 years according to its national agenda and “whoever becomes the PM candidate has to accept that agenda”. He said the NDA’s PM candidate will be decided after the BJP declares its candidate.
“The BJP will decide its PM candidate and then it will be brought up before the NDA. The NDA’s PM candidate will be decided by the NDA, with the BJP and all its constituents,” he said,
Ending the suspense over Modi’s name, the BJP on Sunday anointed him as its election campaign committee chief for 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which is being interpreted by the analysts as the Gujarat Chief Minister’s another step forward towards becoming BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
Party president Rajnath Singh, who has been hailing Modi as the “most popular” leader in the country, has so far maintained that the decision on the party’s PM candidate will be taken by its Parliamentary Board.