With alliances uncertain ahead of the coming general election and problems besetting the main Opposition party, regional players in the UPA, NDA and outside are beginning to smell power, and speculation is growing on possible PM candidates.
While BJP leader Sushma Swaraj has openly backed Narendra Modi for PM, most others haven’t reacted. Among those positioning for the top job is Samajwadi boss Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose Sunday meeting with veteran leader N.D. Tiwari appeared to be a bid to woo brahmin support. But the SP chief still lacks support outside UP, and for the record said on Sunday he was “not in the race for the PM’s post”.
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Uddhav says he will never be ‘pramukh’
Age Correspondent
Mumbai, Dec. 2
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray has declined to accept the position of “pramukh” (supremo), saying his late father Bal Thackeray cannot be replaced from that post.
“There won’t be another Sena pramukh. Balasaheb will always be Sena pramukh and Hindu Hriday Samrat,” he said in an interview in Sunday’s edition of Saamna, the first after Balasaheb’s death.