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While the senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are not unanimous in their choice to project Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the face of the party for 2014 Lok Sabha election, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) suffered a setback after Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray categorically said that there was no “clear face” to lead the country.
The oldest ally of BJP, Shiv Sena, has so far not openly supported Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate of NDA because the Gujarat chief minister is reportedly close to Raj Thackeray, the MNS chief.
“The country needs a reliable face. Can you find one face who fits? Can you see one? Since we cannot see a clear face, let us elect a strong government,” said Uddhav Thackeray, chief of Shiv Sena.
Accepting that BJP and Shiv Sena had faced political untouchability before the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, BJP President Rajnath Singh launched an attack against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said that a leader should be realist and not only an economist. Singh further emphasised that if BJP led NDA is voted to power then the alliance “put the economy back on track within a few years.”
“A leader should have vision and confidence. If you really want to make this country a vibrant India, an economic power, if we wish to enhance its stature and credibility at international level, there should be such a leadership which has a vision and also firm conviction. Only that person can make a vibrant India and an economic power in the world. I did not find that conviction and confidence in the Prime Minister's speech today,” said Rajnath Singh, BJP President, where he was invited along with Uddhav Thackeray for the 92 nd Annual Session of Assocham - “The Vision of a New Vibrant India.”
While describing Prime Minister as intellectually dishonest, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said that Prime Minister didn’t talk of the five percent growth rate which the country has recorded last year in his speech in Assocham, but instead chose to talk about an average of the last eight years. “It is the usual trick of intellectually dishonest people to compare or dress up figures,” Sinha added.
Blaming the UPA of not only failing to control price rise, corruption and decline in growth rate of infrastructure, industrial output and manufacturing sector, the BJP President pointed out that Prime Minister lacked the confidence and conviction needed to accept these challenges.
“I just heard a bit of the Prime Minister's speech today. I was seeing that the confidence, the conviction that one should have that we will improve the country's economy, I did not find that conviction and confidence in the Prime Minister’s speech. Not just today, but ever since he became the Prime Minister, I have been seeing like this,” Singh said .
