Saturday, December 24 2005 16:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Describing reports that Rajnath Singh would succeed L K Advani as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President as 'mere media speculation,' party Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today (Dec 24, 2005) said a decision on the post would be taken only after Advani announced his resignation at the party's Silver Jubilee conference on December 30.

The speculation was triggered due to the meeting of the party top brass at New Delhi yesterday. "Nothing is official till a new president is formally elected at Mumbai," he told sources.

Though informal consultations of electing a new president had started yesterday in New Delhi at a meeting, in which former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, Advani, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh and himself participated, no final decision had been taken.

Rajnath Singh's name was also discussed at the meeting but no final decision was taken, he said.

Advani was expected to announce his resignation in the afternoon on December 30 and the date for the election of a new president would be announced then and there itself, he said.

"No decision will be taken before the Mumbai conference," he asserted.

Naidu said when he was asked to take over the BJP's reins by senior party leaders as he had resigned in the middle of his tenure, he had expressed his inability to do so, to them.

Earlier, distributing relief materials to flood victims in three places in and around Chennai, as part of the 81st birthday celebrations of Vajpayee, he described the former Prime Minister as a 'great statesman and visionary.' His term as Prime Minister is a golden era in the country's history, he added.

Over 4000 flood-affected people were given relief materials.