Panaji, Nov 21 (IANS): Badgered by the media over whether he was likely to replace ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar as Chief Minister, an irate state BJP President Vinay Tendulkar on Wednesday said that he would like to be Prime Minister instead.

The exchange occurred during a press conference at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters at a time when the ruling BJP is at the receiving end of criticism from its coalition allies, party MLAs as well as opposition and civil society who have demanded that Parrikar should be replaced as Chief Minister because he was not accessible and unable to run the administration due to his prolonged illness.

When Tendulkar, who is one of the three BJP leaders whose name has been doing the rounds as a possible replacement for Parrikar, was asked whether he would like to replace Parrikar, he said: "I feel like becoming the Prime Minister. But it has to happen no. Not just CM, I want to be Prime Minister."

Tendulkar, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, also asked the journalist who posed the query whether he had aspirations of becoming Prime Minister too.

Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and Delhi for nearly nine months.