PTI
 
New Delhi, Apr 6: Senior BJP leader L K Advani, who recently expressed keenness on a change in his party's image, on Wednesday said factors like "infighting and corruption" do hurt the party.

The Leader of the Opposition also said he would like to be Prime Minister.

When asked if he was worried about BJP, Advani, who quit as party president in the wake of the row he had triggered with the RSS over his comments on Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah last year, told a private news channel "the general phrase used is 'Congressisation' of the BJP. Infighting, factionalism, corruption... all these things... they do hurt."

To a question whether he wanted to be the Prime Minister, the former Deputy Prime Minister said "I don't see anything wrong in wanting to be.(Prime Minister)."

"That's for the party and everyone to decide... very often these matters are not decided even by the parties... these happen themselves," he remarked adding the choice for the top job depended on varying factors.

In the TV interview, whose excerpts were shown before its full-fledged broadcast scheduled for this evening, the former Deputy Prime Minister also regretted what he called gradual political degeneration in the country after 1947.

"Let me say that prior to 1947, when we got freedom, gradually things started degenerating and gradually it came to a point that politics did not remain what it is in other democracies," Advani said.

He, however, said he did not feel out of place in what he perceives as a changed political environment. "It's not difficult.... I have seen so many people who have contributed so much without getting anything in return," Advani said when asked whether he found uncomfortable in the present political environment.