LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party today sought feverishly to play down remarks by its veteran ideologue and former Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi who had told a television interviewer on Sunday that there was no Narendra Modi wave in the country, only one in support of the party.

Party president Rajnath Singh claimed on Monday that Joshi’s statement had been misinterpreted; the party had projected Modi as its prime ministerial candidate and hence a distinction could not be drawn between a BJP wave and a Modi wave.

Joshi, who was asked to vacate his traditional Varanasi seat in Uttar Pradesh for Modi and shift to Kanpur, had also told the interviewer that the Gujarat model of development — the main campaign plank of the party — could not be replicated in other parts of the country because local factors varied.

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