'BJP meet unlikely to make Modi campaign chief'

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to be appointed in charge of BJP's 2014 poll campaign at its upcoming national executive meeting in Goa as it would not discuss leadership issues, party leader Yashwant Sinha said yesterday.

Will he, won't he? Narendra Modi's supporters have been demanding that he be declared the party's prime ministerial candidate. File Pic

The BJP national executive will meet in Goa June 7-9. "The national executive of the BJP is too large as a body to discuss leadership issues. The BJP has already made it very clear that these issues will be decided in the parliamentary board which is authorised to discuss and take a decision on these issues," Sinha said in a TV interview.

The former union minister and Lok Sabha MP said the national executive would discuss the economic and political situations and some foreign policy issues.

On who was going to be the BJP's leader for the 2014 general election, he said: "I will not go into that question right now. As for the leadership issue, most certainly we should in good time decide who will lead us in the 2014 (parliamentary) elections."

Sinha said he left it to the parliamentary board to decide whether Modi was the most popular leader to lead the BJP. He said it was very important that the party put up a united face.

"At any point of time, it is most essential that we put up a united front and if the impression has gone or gained ground that it is not a united front then we should try and correct that and move forward in a united fashion," Sinha said.

Expressing reservations on the ruling UPA's flagship national food security bill, he said: "It is a disaster waiting to happen. It will open floodgates of corruption. The BJP should take a firm view on that."