No dearth of PM wannabes in BJP

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New Delhi: Senior BJP leader and former deputy Prime Minister L K Advani's interview to CNN-IBN, in which he said that he was the PM-in-waiting, is still creating uproar in the party.

At the party's national executive in Lucknow on Friday, the statement again created news. "Is there any shortage with us (of leaders to be named as candidate for the Prime Minister's post)?," senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said.

He also called BJP veteren Atal Bihari Vajpayee the country's "best" Prime Minister. "Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the party's supreme leader and no one can challenge his stature. Nobody can challenge his authority," Joshi added.

The chief concern of the party at the two-day national executive is to chalk out a strategy for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

The BJP's electoral graph in the state has been plummenting consistently and its vote share has fallen from 36 per cent in 1998 to 27 per cent in 1999. The party was completely routed under Rajnath Singh in the 2002 Assembly elections as the Mulayam versus Mayawati battle gained prominence.

The much-hyped issue of party leadership is also expected to be raised. Cutting short speculations of Advani being the party's choice for PM-in-waiting, Joshi said that it was too early to take a decision in this regard.

Accusing the UPA government of having a soft attitude towards terrorism, the BJP said that the Centre was pursuing a policy of "communal division" by "compromising on the national security".

The party also raised the issue of "Congress-Left's appeasement policy". Senior BJP leaders said that the government's policies were being guided by "vote bank politics".

"The UPA government is creating a pre-1947 situation, may it be the Prime Minister's statement in the NDC meeting or the attitude towards Afzal's clemency petition, it is all guided by one theory of concern for votes," PTI quoted Joshi as saying.