As near 40% of the 1.22 billion Indian population goes to ballot in 2014, debate is on for identifying Prime Ministerial candidates.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa is the most qualified to become India's next prime minister, followed closely by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a survey conducted among NRIs has revealed.

With a score of 86 out of 100, Jayalalithaa ruled the roost and Modi got 81 marks.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi came in third with a score of 53 while other leaders like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP leader L.K. Advani could not even secure the basic score to enter the survey.

"We asked 10 basic questions to shortlist the contenders and only Modi, Jayalalithaa and Rahul Gandhi were able to secure the basic score to enter the survey," Pon Mohaideen Pitchai, a non-resident Indian (NRI) and one of the researchers told IANS.

Around 5,000 NRIs from eight countries including Saudi Arabia, Australia, Britain, Canada and Singapore were interviewed for the "NRI Political research Report" and evaluated the leaders on 10 criterions like education, experience, mass support, world network and leadership skills.

But supporters of Modi in Canada dismissed the results saying the poll is unscientific and lacks credibility.

“Jayalalithaa can’t even speak proper English and her background as an actress does not make her prime minister material,” said Jaswant Singh in Vancouver.

“There have been many corruption scandals involving her and the Tamil Nadu state…I can’t believe that NRI’s in Canada will lend their support to her,” said Singh, who prefers Modi.

Jayalalithaa Jayaram (born 24 February 1948), commonly referred to as Jayalalitha, is the Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. She was a popular film star in Indian cinema before her entry into politics, having appeared in many Tamil and Telugu films, as well as produced in Hindi and Kannada. She is the incumbent general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). She is called Amma ('Mother') and sometimes Puratchi Thalaivi ('Revolutionary Leader') by her followers.

Last month, supporters of India’s most controversial and divisive politician, Narendra Modi, have set up shops in major Canadian cities as the firebrand Hindu leader makes a bid to become his country’s leader.

Modi, the leader of the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat, is heading his party’s campaign to win back power in a national election due by next May

Supporters of the 62-year-old polarizing figure say he is an incorruptible and efficient technocrat who has led Gujarat unprecedented growth. His opponents say Modi is nothing more than an extremist dictator and a master of hate-laced politics.

The Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party (OFBJP) has launched a Canada unit with chapters in four major cities -Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa – “to connect with the Indian diaspora.”

Modi opponents in Canada, including the Indian Overseas Congress which is aligned with the interests of India’s Congress Party panned the launch of the BJP chapters saying it was nothing than a front to raise cash for Modi’s bid to prime minister.

Indian Overseas Congress President Vikram Bajwa in Vancouver feels “tensions will rise with Pakistan, if Muslims are ordered to leave India and go to Pakistan”, and that war is eminent if Modi is Prime Minister of India.

Modi’s Canadian chapters rise as 65 members of the Indian Parliament—some of whom have since backtracked —released a letter they wrote to President Barack Obama urging him to maintain America’s eight-year-old visa ban on Modi.

The U.S., along with England and other Western countries, imposed the ban after human-rights groups implicated Modi in the 2002 massacre of Muslims in his state.The Indian Supreme Court exonerated Modi a decade later, but by then many witnesses had been tampered with or died or killed say some reports.

That year, Hindu mobs—some led by figures from Modi’s own party, one of whom was eventually convicted—went on a revenge spree against Muslims for burning a train with Hindu pilgrims. They razed Muslim homes, raped Muslim women, and killed Muslim men.

However, when asked by Reuters a few weeks ago if he felt any remorse over the grisly events that unfolded on his watch, his response was: If your driver runs over a “kutte ka baccha”—a crude term for a puppy—you would obviously feel regret; it was a statement that simultaneously dodged responsibility and dehumanized Muslims.

Senior Indian Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi has set off from the eastern state of Orissa on a nationwide tour to boost his party's profile.

Son of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi is the youngest member of India's Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty.

Three generations of his family have served as Indian prime minister.

His great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was independent India's first prime minister, and his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi were both prime ministers.

Gandhi is seen as the heir to the Congress Party leadership and a possible future prime minister.