New York, Nov 26 – India’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been shortlisted as a candidate for Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ title, emerging as an early favourite in an online poll.
“The controversial Hindu nationalist and Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat is the most likely candidate to unseat India’s ruling Congress party in the world’s largest democracy,” Press Trust of India (PTI) reports Time as saying.
Time has shortlisted 42 global leaders, entrepreneurs and celebrities for its ‘Person of the Year 2013′ list and will announce the winner next month.
While Time’s editors will choose the final winner, it has asked readers to cast their votes for the person they think “most influenced the news this year for better or worse”.
Modi is leading the readers’ poll with about 25 percent of votes received so far, ahead of Snowden who garnered the second highest number of votes at 7 percent as this Wednesday.
Other shortlised contenders are Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, US President Barack Obama, Pakistani girls education activist Malala Yousafzai, Amazon chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden and new heir to British throne Prince George.
Making it to the list also include Syrian President Bashar Assad, Twitter chief executive officer Dick Costolo, Pope Francis, US actress Angelina Jolie, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
– Bernama
