New Delhi/Patna, June 19 (ANI): Senior politicians Salman Khurshid and Lalu Prasad Yadav gave a mixed response to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's demand that the prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general elections must be a secular person.

In an interview to a leading English newspaper, Kumar hinted that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi may not be acceptable as a prime ministerial candidate, as there were questions about his so called secular make-up.

Kumar and Modi have been known to have had an uneasy relationship within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and the former's remark appears to be an indirect attack on the latter's aspirations to be considered for the prime minister's post in the aftermath of the 2014 elections.

Law Minister Khurshid, welcomed the idea of a secular person being the prime mininster, but refuted Kumar's claim that the central government must only focus on developing states and ignore the developed ones.

See, whoever becomes the Prime Minister and forms the government at the centre, they have the responsibility of the entire nation. It is wrong to say that there should be focus only developing states and ignore developed states. So, a situation will arise that the states that can help will be left to weaken and those states that require help, where will they get it from? We have to have a balanced approach. After all, where do resources come from? Resources come from developed states, he said.

Khurshid added that such issues must be dealt in a more mature manner and there has to be a balanced appoach regarding the same.

We do not have to be narrow in our thinking approach. We have to be balanced, we have to be broad minded and of course, we have to be rational and practical, he said.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, said that he was unaware of any leader in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), who could fit the bill of being a prime ministerial candidate.

Whatever Nitish Kumar has said, only he can explain. Who is secular in the NDA? Who will say in this country that the BJP is secular? That is why Nitish Kumar is making false accusations on me, he said.

If Nitish Kumar is pointing towards Narendra Modi, then, I do not know. Who is secular in the BJP? Either Narendra Modi or Advani, are these leaders actually secular? Nitish Kumar does a lot of drama, he said.

Modi, a member of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has leveraged the economic success of his state to become a national leader and potential prime minister despite accusations of complicity in religious riots in 2002 that killed hundreds of mostly Muslim victims.

He has been popular for attracting investment in Gujarat, may be the best hope the BJP has of beating the Congress party-led government in 2014 elections.

But the sixty-one-year-old is tainted by allegations he turned a blind eye to mobs that killed more than thousand people, mostly Muslims, in the 2002 riots. He was also denied visa to the United States. (ANI)