New Delhi : A day after BJP veteran LK Advani heaped praise on him and pitted him against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday cautioned that not much should be read into it.

Speaking to reporters, the Madhya Pradesh BJP leader said, “Advani ji praised all Chief Ministers. It should not be taken otherwise.”

Chouhan further said that the veteran BJP leader’s appreciation of the work done by all the chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states was being misinterpreted as a sharp criticism of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is the frontrunner to become the party’s official candidate for 2014 polls.

Virtually ruling himself out of the race for prime ministership, Chouhan said, “I stand at number 3. Narendra Modi at number 1 and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh at number 2.”

The remarks from the Madhya Pradesh leader came a day after BJP veteran LK Advani reportedly pitted him against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Advani lavished praise on the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, for accelerating the economic growth of the state.

Modi, Advani said, had done well in Gujarat, but Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Chouhan’s accomplishment was much greater since he virtually wiped out poverty in his state.

Advani also said that Chouhan’s “lack of arrogance” has shades of the party’s iconic leader Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Those remarks were seen as an open rebuke of Modi, whose critics accuse him of lacking humility. The Chief Minister has also been citing his development of Gujarat as one of his biggest achievements in his campaign to be declared the BJP’s presumptive Prime Minister, an issue that is likely to be discussed at the party’s meeting of senior leaders in Goa later this month.

Advani is seen as among those within the BJP who are opposed to Modi winning the prime ministerial nomination, not least because other senior leaders believe they are more deserving candidates.

Earlier this year, Advani unsuccessfully lobbied for Chouhan to be inducted into the party’s influential parliamentary board. Modi made it instead.

Though his popularity was reaffirmed by an emphatic victory in the Gujarat elections in December, the third in a row, Modi remains a divisive figure on account of the riots in his state in 2002, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.