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The crucial meeting between senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), focused on ways to make the party the ‘single largest party’ in the Lok Sabha election in 2014 and give a clear indication to cadre and supporters that the party’s leadership is no longer divided but is working towards forming a government at the centre.
While there was no discussion on who will be the prime ministerial candidate of the party, senior leaders said that there was no clarity if BJP will announce a prime ministerial candidate or not.
RSS leaders had met BJP President Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and other senior leaders to convey the message it had gathered from its recent meeting in Maharashtra that BJP must work hard to become the single largest party in the general election as factionalism at the centre and states was hurting the image of the party and morale of the cadre.
Soon after coming out of the day long meeting, BJP President Rajnath Singh told reporters that there was no discussion on BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and the issue will be discussed only in the parliamentary board when all senior leaders will decide who should be the prime ministerial candidate of the party.
Singh further said that the discussion with RSS leaders Mohan Bhagwat, RSS chief, Sruesh Joshi, general secretary and Suresh Soni, joint general secretary mainly focused on national security and poor economic situation of the country.
The strong section within senior leadership of the party is hoping that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will made the prime ministerial candidate but some resistance was still being made to name anyone as the prime ministerial candidate of the party. Modi was recently made the chairman of the election campaign committee after the national executive meeting in Goa.
“There are assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Rajasthan till December this year. These elections are important for the party and the present focus is to win these elections while preparing for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections,” said a senior BJP leader.
After meeting with the RSS leaders, senior leaders of the BJP met all the general secretaries of the party and members of the election campaign committee to formulate strategy for the assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
