"As far as the election for the second term is concerned, there had been a political conspiracy to link me with a subject with which I had no direct or indirect involvement. After that there were...False allegations one after the other, and yesterday also there was an attempt of this sort," he told reporters here.
Gadkari said that when he felt that there was a conspiracy to tarnish the party by tarnishing his image, he asked his colleagues to look at someone else to lead BJP.
"He (Rajnath Singh) is a farmer leader of stature. He has done good work as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. He is steadfast in the ideology of our parivar and he can lead us to victory in 2014, so I proposed his name and from (L K) Advaniji to Sushma (Swaraj) and (Arun) Jaitley, all supported," he said.
Maintaining that the party's interest should be placed higher than that of an individual, he thanked Advani and other party leaders for their support during his tenure as the BJP chief.