Will Modi follow his rule, retire at 75, asks Kejriwal
The Delhi CM referred to the ‘rule’ from 2014 of letting BJP leaders retire when they turned 75, suggests that voting for Modi would amount to making Amit Shah the next Prime Minister
ack on the campaign trail after being released from Tihar Jail on interim bail, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that voting for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha election would amount to voting for Amit Shah as Prime Minister as Mr. Modi would be set to retire from politics as he turns 75 on September 17, 2025.
However, responding to his comments, Union Home Minister Shah said that Mr. Modi would continue as Prime Minister for the full term, and the BJP’s constitution did not mention any retirement age.
Mr. Kejriwal cited a norm Mr. Modi has enforced in the BJP that lead
Bers should retire at 75. Suggesting a power struggle within the BJP, Mr. Kejriwal said, “If their [BJP] government is formed, they will rst dispose of [Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister] Yogi Adityanath and then make Amit Shah the Prime Minister of the country. PM Modi is asking for votes for Amit Shah. Will Amit Shah full
Modi’s guarantee?”
Mr. Kejriwal took a cue from Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, who also questioned if Mr. Modi was ready to retire at 75, and said, “Modiji himself in 2014 made a rule that whoever in the BJP turns 75, they will be made to retire. First L.K. Advani was made to retire, then Murli
Manohar Joshi, Sumitra Mahajan and Yashwant Sinha. If this pattern is followed, I would like to ask the BJP who is their PM candidate?”
He added that Mr. Modi was on a “one nation, one leader” mission to impose “dictatorship”. “If the BJP wins the Lok Sabha election, all Opposition leaders, including Mamata Banerjee, Tejashvi Yadav, M.K. Stalin, Pinarayi Vijayan and Uddhav Thackeray, will be in jail. They won’t even leave leaders within the BJP as they have already nished the careers of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, Manohar Lal Khattar and Raman Singh. The next in line is Yogi Adityanath,” Mr. Kejriwal said.