Reacting to party leader Varum Gandhi’s remark that the SP will emerge as single largest party in UP election, the BJP responded with a remark that he is a “good psephologist” while its leader L.K. Advani declined to comment.
“Varun Gandhi is an intelligent leader and good psephologist. He has his own predictions. His predictions are not as a BJP leader but as a psephologist. He can have predictions, even we also benefit from that,” BJP spokesperson Saeed Naqvi said.
Varun also said that Congress and the BJP would both improve their tallies at the cost of the ruling BSP.
“I haven’t toured the state but I feel it is probably a truism that SP will be the single largest party in UP, but other than that I don’t know how much BJP, Congress and BSP will get,” he said.
“But I think the BJP will do significantly better. But I can’t say how much. I think SP will be the single largest gainer but I can’t say how well,” he said. Mr Varun Gandhi at the same time said he is not a soothsayer. He replied in the negative when asked if he was a wellwisher of the SP but said he likes to talk “straight”.
Mr Varun Gandhi said the BJP has at least “55 candidates” who can be chief ministers but parties projecting names as chief ministers are at an advantage because in that case it is easy for the people to identify. “It is a human relationship craft. If you do not have one person your message gets diffused. But I think the BJP is one step ahead as it has 55 chief ministerial candidates.”
Making a case for naming chief ministerial candidates, he said “people vote for people” and not for symbols.