Nitish scared to call himself Hindu: RSS - New Kerala
New Delhi, June 20 : Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over his PM remark and said India should have a Prime Minister who will 'propound' Hindutva.
Kumar had said Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should name a secular Prime Minister candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Bhagwat told reporters: The country should have a Prime Minister who propounds Hindutva."
He said Kumar is 'scared' to call himself a Hindu.
Nitish Kumar is scared to call himself a Hindu, Bhagwat said.
Bhagwat lent his support to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by slamming Kumar on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Balbir Punj also opposed Kumar's remarks and said the party has not given authority to anybody to give certificates of secularism to 'individual leaders in the BJP'.
"I want to make it clear that we have not given authority to anybody to give certificates of secularism to individual leaders in the BJP," Punj said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Janata Dal (United) MP Sabir Ali hinted a news channel that if the BJP elected Modi as a candidate for the post of the Prime Minister, the party will quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
"He is from the BJP. We have no right to support Narendra Modi. But we are saying if he will be promoted we will back out," Ali told CNN-IBN.
Kumar on Tuesday created a new embarrassment for the BJP as he said the BJP must name their Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014.
His move seemed to be aimed at the growing influence of Modi with whom he exchanged several barbs in the past.
In an interview to The Economic Times, Kumar said the voters must know who the BJP is selecting in the general elections in 2014 as the PM candidate.
"The leader of the coalition should have secular credentials and liberal frame of mind," he said, reminding of Modi's image after the 2002 Gujarati riots in which the Muslims were killed.
"It should be someone who has absolute faith in democratic values. In a multi-religious and multi-lingual country like ours, the leader should not have rough edges in his personality," he told the financial daily. (IBNS)
RSS backs Modi as Prime Minister, slams Nitish Kumar - Hindustan Times
According to media reports, Bhagwat said that Nitish was scared of calling himself a Hindu. He further added that India should have a PM who propounds Hindutva. Speaking at a public function in Latur, Maharashtra, Bhagwat said that Nitish Kumar is saying this to maintain his vote bank.
The RSS support for Modi comes a day after Bihar CM and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar said publicly that the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections should be "secular and liberal". This was seen in political circles as his rejection of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a possible candidate for the PM’s post.
“The leader of the coalition should have secular credentials and a liberal frame of mind,” Kumar said in a media interview, ruling himself out of the race for prime ministership.
Kumar added that the NDA should declare its PM candidate well ahead of the Lok Sabha elections so that people get to know whom they would vote for. The candidate should be someone who feels for underdeveloped states like Bihar, he said.
Attacking Modi is being seen as Kumar’s attempt to establish his credentials among Bihar Muslims, once seen as a captive vote-bank of his now-fading rival Lalu Prasad.
It also projects him as the NDA's “secular” leader, apart from helping him maintain a calibrated distance from ally BJP in order to keep his options open closer to the general elections.
Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi of the BJP promptly endorsed Kumar's views: “He (the PM candidate) should have a liberal image that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee enjoyed.” But a section of the state BJP disapproved of Kumar's utterances and labelled him as “pseudo-secular”.
MONEY MARKETS-Interbank rates fall on bets of c.bank stimulus - Reuters
* Three-month sterling Libor falls further after minutes
* Euribor rates within whisker of record lows
* Cut in ECB deposit rate seen more likely than refi rate
LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Interbank lending rates in sterling and in euros continued to fall on Wednesday on growing expectations of further support from major central banks around the world to counter the fallout from the euro zone's debt troubles.
The Bank of England looked to be close to launching a new round of monetary stimulus because of the worsening euro zone crisis, according to minutes of its last policy meeting, which showed officials split 5-4 on the move, with Governor Mervyn King in favour.
The minutes helped take three-month sterling Libor to its lowest since September 2011, after the rate tumbled last week when the BoE announced a raft of measures to boost liquidity in the banking system and hinted that more quantitative easing gilt purchases could be on the cards.
Three-month Euribor rates were only a whisker away from record lows after recent comments from European Central Bank officials prompted markets to price in the possibility of more rate cuts.
"Barring a massive rebound in retail sales tomorrow and better PMIs, above all, I think the market is going to be heavily discounting more QE (quantitative easing in the UK) in July," Ma r c Ostwald, strategist at Monument Securities, said.
"For the euro zone, I think really the jury is still out ... The talk that ... reducing the deposit rate to zero is no longer a subject which is a taboo at the ECB, would seem to suggest that a few people will be looking for the ECB to cut rates in July. But what difference that's going to make (I don't know)."
ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny said earlier this month the bank has the ability to cut interest rates if the euro zone economy continues to deteriorate and could even slash the rate that controls money market rates to zero.
That along with recent comments from ECB President Mario Draghi that the euro zone economy faces serious risks and no inflation threat has heightened expectations the ECB could cut interest rates or take policy action soon.
Reflecting this sentiment, three-month Euribor rates traded at 0.657 percent, unchanged from the previous day's level which was the lowest since April 2010. Euribor rates hit a record low of 0.634 percent in March of that same year.
Three-month sterling Libor edged lower to 0.91775 percent from 0.92150 percent the previous session, after a sharp fall last Friday.
DEPOSIT RATE CUT
Eonia forwards showed that markets were expecting the Eonia overnight rate to trough at between 0.224 percent and 0.174 from August, suggesting the market was discounting some possibility of a deposit rate cut.
The rate offered by the ECB's deposit facility is 0.25 percent and is seen as a floor for overnight Eonia rates which last traded at 0.33 percent.
"A deposit facility rate cut is (what the market is) expecting now. If you look at where money markets are trading, it's now expecting Eonia fixings below the 20 basis points level, 15 bps below current Eonia fixings. That would only be possible with the cut of the deposit facility rate," Benjamin Schroeder, rate strategist at Commerzbank, said.
It was hard to gauge market expectations for a deposit rate cut because the ECB could opt for a smaller reduction to say 0.125 percent or a bigger cut to zero percent, he said.
But the market was pricing in a 40 percent chance of a deposit rate cut to zero percent in July and a 50-60 percent of this happening in August, he added.
The reading varied widely between analysts.
Simon Peck, rate strategist at RBS, said the market was pricing in a 25 percent chance the ECB would cut its deposit rate to zero in September and only an 8 percent chance of such a move in July.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday may also opt to launch a new round of monetary stimulus.
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