BJP hits back at Digvijaya: Who is YOUR PM candidate?

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday ridiculed Congress leader Digvijaya Singh over his remark -- that Sushma Swaraj would be a better prime ministerial candidate than Narendra Modi -- saying the party did not need advice from a man who has not "dared" to fight Lok Sabha elections and who has been involved in his party's consecutive defeats in Madhya Pradesh.

"Our party has taken a decision after due deliberations. We don't need his advice. But let me ask him -- who is his party's PM candidate? The courtiers in Congress backed Rahul
Gandhi for it but he did not accept the challenge," BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Singh had said Swaraj is acceptable to people like Atal Bihari Vajpayee while Modi has sidelined all other leaders in the BJP.

Though Swaraj has not responded to Singh's remarks, she has previously hit back at him for a similar comment, saying he would also be a better PM candidate than Rahul Gandhi.

Prasad said even Congress no longer takes Singh seriously.

"He could not dare to fight Lok Sabha elections from Madhya Pradesh. He keeps making such statements to be in the limelight. The Congress, under him, has lost for a third time in a row in MP assembly elections. We don't need his advice," he told reporters.

The deputy leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha also accused the Prime Minister's Office of using "spurious statistics" to claim lack of development in Gujarat.

Communication Adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office Pankaj Pachauri has tweeted several figures since Monday which show that Gujarat is behind a number of states in growth rate.

Prasad claimed that Pachauri's figures are based on "wrong and fictional" data.

Pachauri, he said, could not put out such information without the consent of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demanded an apology from the PMO.

Image: Digvijaya Singh