People floating my name as PM candidate not well wishers: Nitish

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he was “pained” at his name being floated for the prime ministerial candidate and people doing so are not his well wishers. “It pains me at knowing that some people are floating my name (as the prime ministerial candidate)…Whosoever is floating my name for the prime ministerial candidate is not my well wisher),” he told reporters at a sidelines of a function here. [caption id=“attachment_619205” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nitish Kumar. Reuters.[/caption] “I don’t want to say anything on the prime ministerial issue),” the chief minister said and sought a full stop to speculation doing the rounds about his prime ministerial ambition and his case being buttressed by some senior JD(U) leaders as a more suitable prime ministerial candidate in the NDA than Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Senior JD(U) leader and Bihar State Planning Board Deputy Chairman Hari Kishore Singh had recently described Kumar as the most suitable candidate for the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate for 2014 general elections. Singh was also quoted as saying that more often than not the bridegroom never says that he is ready for marriage, in an apparent reference to Kumar’s eligibility to be projected as the prime ministerial candidate by the NDA. Singh had expressed concern that NDA will disintegrate if Modi is projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Without taking his name, Kumar had publicly expressed his stiff opposition to Modi being projected as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and firmly advocated for a secular person with wider acceptability in cross section of the society to be projected as the candidate for the top post. Apart from the former union minister, some other senior BJP and JD(U) leaders too have been engaged in war of words with each other on the prime ministerial issue within the NDA recently with loyalists of both Modi and Kumar feverishly backing their leader’s stature for being projected as the prime ministerial candidate. PTI