Dhanbad(Jharkhand), Aug 11: UPA convenor and JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav today said he was not in the race for prime ministership if NDA won majority in 2014 general election.
“The prime ministerial candidate would be decided by NDA at the time of election. It is too early to jump to any conclusion. Since all have freedom of speech, let them speak their mind on the name of the NDA prime ministerial candidate,” Yadav, who arrived here from New Delhi to attend a two-day training camp of Jharkhand JD(U) state unit at Maithon, told newsmen here.
Yadav's comment follows party leader Nitish Kumar pitching for announcing in advance the name of NDA prime ministerial candidate for the next Lok Sabha elections and his denial of any aspiration to the highest post. He had also advocated a secular candidate.
Adding further grist to the mill to the Nitish Kumar versus Narendra Modi debate, he claimed that Bihar was the best governed state in the country and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had corroborated it.
“Mohan Bhagwat is an experienced person and whatever he said about Bihar is the ground reality. His statement corroborated that Nitish Kumar is the best chief minister in the country. Better than Narendra Modi,” he said. Bhagwat during an interaction with foreign media on Thursday had said Bihar was better governed state than Gujarat.
The division of Bihar was wrong decision. Jharkhand, which was created out of it, has not developed as it should have due to the Centre's apathy, he said.
Lambasting the UPA government at the Centre for playing a ‘big joke' on the poor people of the country, he said “On one hand it (the Centre) has raised prices of all commodities and on the other it is announcing that it will provide mobile phones to each BPL family, who are striving hard to have two square meals a day.”
The Centre, he said, had also failed to bail out the ‘beleaguered' farmers of the country. “One half of the country is facing drought, while the other is submerged by floods.
The farmers are committing suicide across the country but central government has not initiated any step to bail them out.” He criticised the Centre for ‘step motherly' treatment to Bihar and Jharkhand in combating the drought situation in the two states.
He claimed that the coal block allotment scam would expose the corruption by the UPA government. Persons who were allotted coal blocks had nothing to do with coal.
A coal block was allotted to the brother of central minister in Jharkhand, he claimed adding the Centre is ‘mired in corruption' right from 2G spectrum allocation to commonwealth games and several ministers had landed in jail for their involvement in them.
