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New Delhi: Indias business community strongly supports Hindu hardliner Narendra Modi to be the next premier, a poll showed Friday, with the ruling Congress partys heir-apparent, Rahul Gandhi, trailing a distant second.
Modi, chief minister of the economically thriving Gujarat state, is expected to be tapped to be prime minister if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins a general election due by May.
The Nielsen/Economic Times newspaper poll of 100 corporate leaders showed 74% wanted Modi to be prime minister while just seven per cent believed Gandhi would be the best choice.
Modi, popularly known as NaMo, was named the BJPs election committee chairman in June and has sought to broaden his appeal by pitching himself as an advocate of economic development rather than Hindu supremacy, by stressing his achievements in promoting industry.
He has not stated publicly he wants to prime minister, but has painted himself as a pro-business reformist who can revive the fortunes of the worlds largest democracy, which is suffering a sharp economic slowdown and whose currencys value has plunged.
Analysts have raised fears that India could face a crunch of the sort it suffered in 1991 when a foreign exchange-strapped government had to pawn its gold for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.
Modi has become popular in Indias corporate world where he is seen as a market-friendly leader who has energetically wooed industry to set up factories in his state.
But he remains a divisive figure after being accused of doing nothing to stop Hindu mobs massacring Muslims during riots in his state in 2002 in which as many 2,000 people died, according to rights groups.
While Modi has denied any wrongdoing, one of his former ministers was jailed last year for orchestrating some of the 2002 violence and Indias Supreme Court once likened him to Nero, the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned.
Gandhi, 43, who is some two decades younger than Modi, and who has a vastly different background and personality, has been groomed for the premiers job by his mother, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.
But he has shown a marked reluctance to pursue the post with 80-year-old premier Manmohan Singh expected to step aside following the election and declared earlier this year he was not a hard-nosed politician.
The Congress-led government is lagging badly in the polls, its popularity sapped by the economic downturn and a slew of corruption scandals.
India business favours Narendra Modi to be PM: poll - Livemint
Modi, chief minister of the economically thriving Gujarat state, is expected to be tapped to be prime minister if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins a general election due by May.
The Nielsen/Economic Times newspaper poll of 100 corporate leaders showed 74% wanted Modi to be prime minister while just seven per cent believed Gandhi would be the best choice.
Modi, popularly known as NaMo, was named the BJPs election committee chairman in June and has sought to broaden his appeal by pitching himself as an advocate of economic development rather than Hindu supremacy, by stressing his achievements in promoting industry.
He has not stated publicly he wants to prime minister, but has painted himself as a pro-business reformist who can revive the fortunes of the worlds largest democracy, which is suffering a sharp economic slowdown and whose currencys value has plunged.
Analysts have raised fears that India could face a crunch of the sort it suffered in 1991 when a foreign exchange-strapped government had to pawn its gold for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.
Modi has become popular in Indias corporate world where he is seen as a market-friendly leader who has energetically wooed industry to set up factories in his state.
But he remains a divisive figure after being accused of doing nothing to stop Hindu mobs massacring Muslims during riots in his state in 2002 in which as many 2,000 people died, according to rights groups.
While Modi has denied any wrongdoing, one of his former ministers was jailed last year for orchestrating some of the 2002 violence and Indias Supreme Court once likened him to Nero, the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned.
Gandhi, 43, who is some two decades younger than Modi, and who has a vastly different background and personality, has been groomed for the premiers job by his mother, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.
But he has shown a marked reluctance to pursue the post with 80-year-old premier Manmohan Singh expected to step aside following the election and declared earlier this year he was not a hard-nosed politician.
The Congress-led government is lagging badly in the polls, its popularity sapped by the economic downturn and a slew of corruption scandals.
India business favours Narendra Modi to be PM: poll - Livemint
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