No vacancy for PM's post in 2019: Ravishankar Prasad

Patna: Union Minister Ravishankar Prasad on Sunday said there will be no vacancy for Prime Minister in 2019 as the BJP-led NDA will win the next Lok Sabha polls under the leadership of Narendra Modi.

"There is no vacancy for the PM's post in 2019," he said in his reaction to a division in Bihar's ruling grand alliance of JD-U, RJD and Congress over the likely prime ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha polls. Prasad said the leaders of opposition Congress and its allies have been day-dreaming to become the PM and no one can stop them from it.

State Congress chief Ashok Choudhary, who is also Education Minister in the Nitish Kumar government, said at a joint meeting of the grand alliance that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will be the prime ministerial candidate of the party in the 2019 general elections.

But Janata Dal-United state president Vashsisht Narain Singh and Rashtriya Janata Dal state president Ram Chandra Purve said that any prime ministerial candidate will be decided by the national leadership of their party.

In fact, there is a strong speculation in political circles here that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also the JD-U's national president, is keen to be projected as prime ministerial candidate of a united opposition against Modi.