NEW DELHI: Union Agriculture MinisterSharad Pawar has said a person aspiring to be prime minister should be secular, open-minded and liberal, and being popular is not the only criterion for the job, implicitly questioning the suitability of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the nation's top executive position.
"I might be popular, but that is not sufficient in a parliamentary democracy set-up. One has to assess every chief minister, his success and rating in terms of how far he has succeeded in developing his colleagues. If you feel there is a galaxy of capable leaders he (Modi) has developed for Gujarat and you can name them, that will be a good addition to my political knowledge," said Pawar, in his first substantive comments on the issue.
During the course of an exclusive two-hour interview with ET, the NCP leader also questioned the so-called Gujarat model of development that has been often held up by Modi as his calling card for the top job, saying the state was historically better off on the development front than others primarily because its previous leaders such as Chimanbhai Patel and Madhav Singh Solanki were "development oriented". He said credit should instead be given to leaders of states such as Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (both BJP-ruled) that were once categorised as sick, but have since pulled themselves up by the bootstraps.
"I would give more marks to the model (of development) which has has improved the overall situation in the state," said Pawar.
The NCP leader said Modi's socalled development model was a case of outsized projections, and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, who in Pawar's view is a better performer, may not "desire" to project himself in the same manner as Modi. He said Modi's projection as PM could work in favour of Congress, and the party would get a "definite advantage" in that case "Some sections that have drifted away fromCongress would come (back) to it."
According to Pawar, voters in northern and central India, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that account for 120 seats in Parliament, tend to vote not to elect someone but to defeat those they do not favour. "So in these elections, the public at large comes to this conclusion that XYZ should not come, they will find who can defeat XYZ and Congress will benefit from that," said Pawar.
The veteran leader from Maharashtra, who does not plan to contest the next elections nor serve as a minister, dismissed the possibility of a Third Front and said his party would go along with Congress, whose "Gandhi and Nehru" thinking it associated with.
But he appeared puzzled at repeated attacks by some Congress ministers, notably Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma, on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, stating that such attacks only create obstructions in running the government. He cautioned that such attacks could lead to a "fatal accident" with the government collapsing.
"I might be popular, but that is not sufficient in a parliamentary democracy set-up. One has to assess every chief minister, his success and rating in terms of how far he has succeeded in developing his colleagues. If you feel there is a galaxy of capable leaders he (Modi) has developed for Gujarat and you can name them, that will be a good addition to my political knowledge," said Pawar, in his first substantive comments on the issue.
During the course of an exclusive two-hour interview with ET, the NCP leader also questioned the so-called Gujarat model of development that has been often held up by Modi as his calling card for the top job, saying the state was historically better off on the development front than others primarily because its previous leaders such as Chimanbhai Patel and Madhav Singh Solanki were "development oriented". He said credit should instead be given to leaders of states such as Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (both BJP-ruled) that were once categorised as sick, but have since pulled themselves up by the bootstraps.
"I would give more marks to the model (of development) which has has improved the overall situation in the state," said Pawar.
The NCP leader said Modi's socalled development model was a case of outsized projections, and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, who in Pawar's view is a better performer, may not "desire" to project himself in the same manner as Modi. He said Modi's projection as PM could work in favour of Congress, and the party would get a "definite advantage" in that case "Some sections that have drifted away fromCongress would come (back) to it."
According to Pawar, voters in northern and central India, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that account for 120 seats in Parliament, tend to vote not to elect someone but to defeat those they do not favour. "So in these elections, the public at large comes to this conclusion that XYZ should not come, they will find who can defeat XYZ and Congress will benefit from that," said Pawar.
The veteran leader from Maharashtra, who does not plan to contest the next elections nor serve as a minister, dismissed the possibility of a Third Front and said his party would go along with Congress, whose "Gandhi and Nehru" thinking it associated with.
But he appeared puzzled at repeated attacks by some Congress ministers, notably Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma, on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, stating that such attacks only create obstructions in running the government. He cautioned that such attacks could lead to a "fatal accident" with the government collapsing.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment