BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said Narendra Modi is the "best possible card" for the party in the Lok Sabha elections and dismissed media speculation that L K Advani was opposed to his elevation.
"It is not only an overwhelming consensus among the leaders but there is a near unanimous view among the cadres that you have to give a special responsibility to a person who is perceived as highly popular and inspirational leader as far as cadres are concerned.
"A party has to play its best possible card in the elections and that is what the party president has done," he said reacting to Modi's appointment as Chairman of the BJP Campaign Committee for the Lok Sabha polls.
Asked whether there were no divisions in the party on the issue and whether Advani had suggested setting up of another Committee, Jaitley said "I am not aware of any such view (of Advani). The entire generation of leaders at present active in the party, not one of them has done a fraction of services that Advani had lent to the party."
He said Advani's views are always heard in rapt attention regardless of what he says by leaders of the party. "He has no such position as has been widely perceived by the media," Jaitley said.
Dismissing speculation that Advani had kept away from meeting because of his opposition to Modi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said that the party veteran stayed away because he was not in the best of health in the last few days and the media should accept it graciously.
Asked whether Modi has been announced the Prime Ministerial candidate, he said that any further will be taken at the right time.
Jaitley said with today's decision it will be now a fight between Congress and BJP in which Congress is poorly placed. "We have intensified the campaign against the Congress party," he said.
