Political conspiracy to tarnish my image: Gadkari

Outgoing Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari today alleged that there was a ‘political conspiracy’ to tarnish his image and, therefore, in the interest of the party, he proposed the name of Rajnath Singh for party's top post.

"As far as the election for the second term is concerned, there had been a political conspiracy to link me with a subject with which I had no direct or indirect involvement. After that there were...false allegations one after the other, and on Tuesday also there was an attempt of this sort," he told mediapersons in New Delhi.

Gadkari said that when he felt that there was a conspiracy to tarnish the party by tarnishing his image, he asked his colleagues to look at someone else to lead BJP.

"He (Singh) is a farmer leader of stature. He has done good work as Uttar Pradesh chief minister. He is steadfast in the ideology of our parivar and he can lead us to victory in 2014, so I proposed his name and from (L K) Advaniji to Sushma (Swaraj) and (Arun) Jaitley, all supported," he said.

Maintaining that the party's interest should be placed higher than that of an individual, he thanked Advani and other party leaders for their support during his tenure as the BJP chief.