The Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani has called for the second rung leaders in the party to contest elections. Advani had wanted some of them like Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj to take charge of the election campaign at national level.
According to sources, this sent wrong signals as people felt that the second-rung team was shying away from contesting elections and wanted to enter Parliament through backdoor.
Sushma Swaraj was the only leader who expressed her willingness to contest elections. "I was told to contest against Sonia Gandhi from Bellary and like true soldier of the party I obeyed the orders. I may have lost but I managed to give her a good fight. I am going to contest from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh," Swaraj said.
"I can only speak for myself," she said. Besides MP, Swaraj would also look after Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Jaitley, whose name was being mentioned for contesting elections from New Delhi, according to sources has declined to contest. He has now the choice of contesting election from Amritsar or Surat.
If Jaitley decides to contest from Amritsar than he may switch places with cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The name of Chandan Mitra from also proposed form New Delhi but when asked if he was keen on contesting, Mitra told rediff.com that he was not too keen on contesting and that names keep on doing rounds.
Likewise M Venkaiah Naidu is toying with the idea of contesting from Nellore but has not made up his mind as yet.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said that some of the big leaders may be required to manage the campaign for the party. A decision in this regard may be taken either during the national executive to held at Nagpur later this week.
