BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani has said that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had the capabilities of becoming a prime minister and promised to implement the Gujarat model of development if NDA comes to power.

During an online chat session organised by Rediff with netizens, Advani was asked if BJP had other leaders who could don the mantle of Prime Minister. “The BJP has many such leaders who have the capability of becoming Prime Minister and Narendra Modi is one of them. He agreed that there were many leaders in BJP who were very capable,” BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters, quoting Advani.

In a response to another question, Advani said, “Gujarat under the leadership of Modi has become a model for all others in the country as a corruption-free state. I believe this would be one of the principal objectives a new NDA government at the Centre would have in mind.” Modi, who is considered as one of the rising second rung leaders within the BJP, has been in the thick of controversies for his Hindu right-wing image.

Advani received 11,000 questions during the one-and-a-half hour interaction, according to Rudy.

Advani replied to 35 of them.

When asked whether he felt India should attack Pakistan, Advani said, “What action precisely to take is a matter in which only a government which is fully posted about all the necessary parameters within which action can be taken can decide.”