Gandhinagar, 5 April 2014

NDA Chairman and senior BJP leader Shri LK Advani accompanied by party’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi filed his nomination papers today for the upcoming Lok Sabha Polls from Gandhinagar in Gujarat. Advani’s son and daughter were present on this occasion among others.

Advani, 86, said he never thought of not contesting from his traditional Lok Sabha seat of Gandhinagar and recalled his long association with Gujarat.

“Our friends from Madhya Pradesh wanted me to contest from Bhopal also. But I have never intended not contesting from Gandhinagar,” he said, denying there was any row over the constituency from where he wanted to fight the election.

The five-time MP, who will file his nomination later in the day, said contesting from Gandhinagar is “absolutely rejoicing” and traced his decades-old association with the state.

“After all my relations with Gandhinagar and with Gujarat did not start with my contesting from here. They started with unfortunate incident that accompanied India’s independence,” Advani said, referring to the partition after which he and his family moved to India from Pakistan.

“My father stepped in Adipur (a Kutch township where Advani and his family moved after the Partition) for a brief while. He then moved to Kashi (Banaras or modern-day Varanasi), where my grandmother wanted to spend her last days.

“He was there for 3-4 four years and then shifted to Adipur. This is the background of my and my family’s association with Gujarat,” he said.

Advani praised Modi as an able administrator. “Modi will become the PM of the country,” he said while addressing the media in Gandhinagar

Shri Advani while addressing party workers in Gandhinagar in presence of Shri Narendra Modi said he wants to see Modi as PM, not Gujarat CM anymore and he will become the PM of this nation.

Advani asked party men to ensure maximum voting not for BJP but for healthy democracy.

Modi who was present with Advani at karyakarta sammelan in Gandhnagar said: Inki(Advani) ungli pakad ke chalne ka hum jaise lakhon lakhon karyakartaon ko saubhagya mila hai.

-I have seen elections since 1952. I have not seen any election in the past where apart from the media assessment and party assessment – almost everyone is talking about the result.
-Ask any man and he will tell you two things – the present government is going to change and a BJP- led government is going to be formed.
-I will not call Narendrabhai my protege.
-I have never seen a more brilliant and efficient events manager than him. And this events management capacity he had brought to governance also. That has made him more suitable for the assignment the party has given to him.
-I would not compare him to Atalji. He was a class in himself. The main ideologue of the party was Deen Dayal Upadhyay and the person to implement it in governance was Atalji.
Narendrabhai Modi has proved a remarkable leader, not just of the BJP but even when he was an RSS pracharak
-I’m always happy to come to Gujarat not just because this state has elected me. It is essentially because after the holocaust of partition displaced my entire family from Karachi here… And if we got a place to settle it was a in Gujarat, in Kutch really where my father and other family members stayed for quite sometime in Adipur.
-I am not just happy but rejoicing really that I’m in Gandhinagar again and seeking re- election for the seventh time in a row
-(Question:Will Modi make an able administrator as PM?) No doubt about that. After all he has a record to show even as an administrator, as part of a government…