PTI
 
Lucknow, Dec 22:  Against the backdrop of senior BJP leader L K Advani's 'PM-in-waiting' remarks, former Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi on Friday said he believed there was no dearth of leaders in the party to be named as candidate for the post.

He called BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee the country's ‘best’ Prime Minister.

"Vajpayee is India's best leader. He is an international leader. No one can challenge his authority," Joshi said.

"Is there any shortage with us (of leaders to be named as candidate for the Prime Minister's post)," he asked when reporters sought his comment on Advani's recent remarks that the Leader of the Opposition is 'PM-in-waiting' in the British Parliamentary system.

Joshi said that a decision in this regard was too early to be made. "Is there an election right now? It will be known when the time is ripe," he said before the start of the BJP's National Executive in Lucknow.

He saw no issue in party activists in Uttar Pradesh, the home state of BJP chief, putting up large cutouts of Rajnath Singh and Vajpayee while Advani showed in small pictures printed on party banners.

"This is all a camera (television) story even I am not there in numerous posters," Joshi said pointing that Lucknow was the parliamentary constituency of the former prime minister.