By IANS,
New Delhi : The BJP will declare a prime ministerial candidate after the Lok Sabha polls, party president Nitin Gadkari said Sunday,
“(At an) appropriate time… we will decide… after the Lok Sabha election… Getting majority is the main thing. After whatever the number of seats we will get in the election, we will sit and decide the candidate on that basis,” Gadkari told CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai in an interview.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief said he was not “in the race of PM candidates” but he confirmed that he will fight the 2014 parliamentary election.
Gadkari said that the BJP will support a no-trust motion initiated by the Trinamool Congress against the United Progressive Alliance government and asserted he would quit politics if his detractors proved that he had business links with his associate Ajay Sancheti, a Rajya Sabha MP of the BJP, or Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar.
Referring to activist Arvind Kejriwal’s graft allegations against Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Gadkari said the Congress should institute an inquiry.
“If they have confidence they should investigate and prove Arvind wrong. Why do they fear… I’m 100 percent ready for any inquiry… I have no problem.”
Gadkari, who is under fire from the Congress over his letter to Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for release of payments to contractors in a water project in Vidarbha in Maharashtra, said he had sent the missive so that project could be completed early.
Asked about Sancheti, Gadkari said he had no direct or indirect business links with him. He said irrigation contracts were given to Sancheti before he became the president of the BJP.
“Now I’m challenging the Congress party and the media – if you have got single evidence which can prove that I’ve a direct, indirect business link with Ajay Sancheti or Sharad Pawar please prove that. I will donate all my property to whosoever can be identified… I will leave politics,” he said.
Asked about party leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi emerging as a prime ministerial candidate, Gadkari said he was one of the front-runners.
“There are many leaders who are capable to become a PM from Advaniji to Arunji to Sushmaji, Rajnath Singh, Dr. Joshiji, Narendra Modiji, they all are capable for the PM, they all are people’s leaders and the group of all capable leaders is the think tank for the party, and we will decide at appropriate time who will be our candidate,” Gadkari said.
He said the BJP was not “father-son or mother-son” party or a proprietary concern. “Narendra Modi is one of the important face, he is a role model for the party. He is a successful CM of Gujarat.”
Asked about Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s possibility of being a prime ministerial candidate, Gadkari said: “You suggest, we will also add that name… Let us wait for some time, after election what number of seats we will get on that basis we will decide, who will be the candidate.”
On the government’s decisions regarding FDI in insurance and pension, Gadkari said the government had “no moral authority and majority”.
He said the government betrayed the opposition on its decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail.
The issues were taken up to divert people’s attention from “corruption and scandals”.
He said the part will back Trinamool’s no-confidence motion. “We will support her… there is one formula. The one person who is the most important person in the UPA government is the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) director, the government has survived because of CBI director,” he said.