Name Modi as PM nominee, demands BJP’s Bihar unit

A resolution was adopted by the Bihar BJP on Saturday asking the party central parliamentary board to announce Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

At the end of the two-day state executive committee meeting of BJP here, former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi introduced the resolution demanding Modi, the party’s campaign committee chief, be named as its PM nominee without any loss of time, which was seconded by leader of the opposition in the assembly, Nand Kishore Yadav.

The House adopted the resolution amid sloganeering for Modi. The Bihar unit has become the first to make a formal demand on this.

The Gujarat chief minister, meanwhile, said talk over rural development was incomplete without speaking about Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Balwant Mehta.

Recalling the vision of father of the nation, Modi said, ‘Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Gram Rajya and Gram Swarajya. Had we implemented Gandhi’s vision in letter and spirit our villages would have gone far ahead of the cities. And if we implement it even today, no one will think of going to the cities, everyone will stay in the villages.’

He said Gandhi’s vision for the development of villages is 100 per cent relevant today. ‘Gram Sabha should be as important to the village as the Lok Sabha is for the nation,’ Modi said. Stating that by sitting in the state capital authorities cannot take decisions about the needs of villages, Modi laid emphasis on providing more autonomy to the panchayats for village development.