New Delhi: Narendra Modi will contest the Lok Sabha elections due by May, and his party, the BJP, will decide his seat, party chief Rajnath Singh has said.
"There has been no decision yet on where Narendra bhai will contest elections from. He could contest from Gujarat or elsewhere. That will be decided by the central election committee," Mr Singh told NDTV.
(Watch)Last week, when Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was asked by NDTV whether he would consider contesting the Lok Sabha elections against Mr Modi, he posed a counter-question, with a grin, "Is Narendra Modi even contesting?"
(Watch Arvind Kejriwal's interview)
Rajnath Singh asserted, "He will definitely contest."
(Watch full interview)There has been much speculation on where Mr Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, will choose to enter the Lok Sabha from. Gujarat, where he is Chief Minister, and has posted three emphatic wins in assembly elections over the last 12 years, would seem a natural choice.
But when his close aide Amit Shah was handed charge of the BJP's electioneering in Uttar Pradesh last year, the buzz that he would scout for a constituency for Mr Modi gained ground. Uttar Pradesh has sent most of India's Prime Ministers to the Lok Sabha, including the BJP's only PM so far, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was the MP from Lucknow for many years.
The BJP has consistently denied that Mr Modi has zeroed in on Uttar Pradesh, reiterating as Mr Singh did, that a decision will be taken only in due course.
Uttar Pradesh is also where the Congress' first family, the Gandhis, contest from - party chief Sonia Gandhi is the MP from Rae Bareli and her son and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi represents neighbouring Amethi.
The Lok Sabha elections 2014 has for months been seen as a direct contest between Mr Modi and Mr Gandhi, though the latter has not officially been named as his party's prime ministerial candidate.
After Mr Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party made a spectacular debut in the Delhi Assembly elections last December, many now see a triangular battle. The AAP has said it will contest at least a whopping 350 seats in the national elections and is pitching its chief, Mr Kejriwal as its candidate for the top post.