Ahmedabad:
The Gujarat BJP will recommend to the party's national leadership that prime ministerial candidate
Narendra Modi contest a Lok Sabha seat from his state and will also request the party's senior-most leader LK Advani to contest from Gandhinagar again.
State BJP spokesman, Vijay Rupani announced this after top party leaders met at the residence of Mr Modi, who is also the Gujarat Chief Minister, today.
"It's the feeling of six crore Gujaratis that Modiji should contest from one of the seats and we will convey this to the central parliamentary board tomorrow," Mr Rupani said, adding that while a strategic decision had been taken to field Mr Modi from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, he must also contest from Gujarat, the state where he evolved his "development model".
Intense speculation on the seats that Mr Modi will contest in next month's general elections ended partially on the weekend with the BJP deciding that he will replace a reluctant Murli Manohar Joshi as the party's candidate in Varanasi.
The BJP is expected to decide on candidates for Gujarat's 26 seats by tomorrow. There has been buzz that Mr Modi could choose to contest from either Ahmedabad East or Vadodara but there were also reports that some BJP workers suggested he contest from Gandhinagar in stead of Mr Advani who has been the sitting MP there since 1998.
That speculation ended today with the decision that the state unit would invite the 87-year-old to contest from Gandhinagar again.
Mr Advani was once seen as Mr Modi's mentor, but sharp differences grew between the two leaders. Last year, Mr Advani attempted to stop the party from making what he called a hasty announcement about Mr Modi being the PM candidate. He failed to do so.