BJP has several prime ministerial aspirants: Tewari

Union Minister Manish Tewari took a jibe at BJP leaders on Friday for criticising the UPA model of governance, saying the opposition party itself had several prime ministerial aspirants and suffered from "internecine warfare".

Union Minister Manish Tewari took a jibe at BJP leaders on Friday for criticising the UPA model of governance, saying the opposition party itself had several prime ministerial aspirants and suffered from "internecine warfare".

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"I am surprised, it is a bit of an oxymoron, that who is talking about divided power centres. If you look at BJP, you have prime ministers in waiting, you have prime ministers in lurking, you have prime ministers who are sulking, and you have all sorts of tendencies which are reflective of a term which can be characterised as internecine intra-party warfare," Tewari said. "So when BJP talks about dual power centres, it just makes me laugh, at times makes me feel like crying," the I&B minister told reporters here.

He was reacting to media queries about BJP leader Arun Jaitley's comment that the Prime Minister appeared to know about the problems plaguing the country but is unable to take action due to the UPA model of governance where the elected leader does not have the final say.

To a question on Narendra Modi's statements that time had come to repay India's debts, Tewari said, "As someone who believes in the idea of India, who believes in the plurality of Indian ethos, who is committed to the founding values of the Indian Constitution, I often worry about the statements of the Gujarat chief minister. I hope he doesn't want to do in the rest of India what he did in Gujarat in 2002."

On questions related to the United States' stance of not granting a visa to Modi, Tewari said he wondered why there was an obsession related to a foreign visa.