Badal rejects JDU ‘offer’ for PM chair
A Nitish minister made the offer.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has rejected the offer made by Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United to be projected as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the “Federal Front”. The offer had been made by Bihar Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh of the JDU. “Badal Sahib, we want you to unfurl the Tricolour at the Red Fort. We will support you as you are the senior-most farmer leader,” Narendra Singh told a gathering of farmers, scientists, Chief Ministers and businessmen at the Progressive Punjab Agriculture Summit 2014 in Mohali. Badal ignored the comment at the time, but his son, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal later clarified that his father was happy being in the state. Narendra Singh made the offer just a week before NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was scheduled to address a rally in Punjab on 23 February. The Shiromani Akali Dla is a part of the BJP-led NDA.
While Parkash Singh Badal tried to ensure that the summit remained non-political, he also used it to project the UPA’s failure in improving agriculture. Presentations were made to showcase how agriculture was better in BJP-ruled states than in Congress-ruled states. While several Chief Ministers attended the summit, not Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, who was addressing a rally at Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh on the same day. His Agriculture Minister represented him. The summit was planned much before Modi’s rally in Himachal.
Political observers say that Badal kept Modi away from the summit so that Chief Ministers of states not yet committed to the NDA could share a platform against the Congress on the issue of agriculture.