BJP yet to decide on Prez candidate: Amit Shah

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to take a decision on its candidate for the upcoming Presidential poll, even as the party virtually rejected the proposal for Hindu leader Mohan Bhagwat.

Shiv Sena, a far-right regional party and BJP ally, had proposed the name of Bhagwat, the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation.

Replying to a question on the Bjp-led NDA’S candidate for the Presidential polls in July, as the opposition was already working on putting up a joint candidate, BJP President Amit Shah said in an interview that a decision is yet to be taken.

“Even if I have a name on my mind, it has to be discussed within the party first,” he said.

He also rejected the Shiv Sena’s proposal regarding Bhagwat, saying that party has itself ruled it out.

To questions on Kashmir, Shah said there was no need for even an “iota of concern” over the situation in the state which has witnessed months of unrest, and asserted that the Narendra Modi-led government will control it soon.

“There is a big gap between the reality and the projection” of the Kashmir situation and the trouble was confined to “three and a half districts”, he said.

The government was keeping a sharp vigil over the situation and the Valley has witnessed many spells of such unrest in the past before the situation has normalised, he said.

Shah also attacked the Congress

There is a big gap between the reality and the projection of the Kashmir situation and the trouble was confined to three and a half districts

for criticising the government, claiming that it had no right to do so as the Kashmir problem was an outcome of the policies of its governments since independence.

Terming the lynching of seven persons in Jharkhand by a mob over abduction rumours as an “isolated and stray incident” which happens in a country of 125 crore people, the BJP chief said it would not be appropriate to link such cases of violence to his party.

People should look up the crime data to find out if cases of violence have increased under the BJP governments, he said.

To a question on whether Tamil superstar Rajinikanth would join the BJP, Shah said the decision has to be taken by the actor himself and his party welcomed all good people to its fold.

Ahead of the Modi government’s third anniversary, he said it has won the people’s trust and added that the poor have the belief that it was working for their welfare.

In a democracy the “biggest certificate is the people’s verdict” and the masses have time and again underscored their support for the Bjp-led NDA government, he said in a reference to the BJP’S win in several state polls.

The Modi government has been able to rid the country of the politics of casteism, family rule and appeasement, and turned the focus on the politics of performance, he claimed.

While the UPA government was accused of scams running into Rs 12 lakh crore, even rivals of the NDA government have not levelled a single charge of corruption against it, Shah claimed.