BHOPAL: Union External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj announced on Tuesday that she won’t contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The two time Lok Sabha member from Vidisha seat of the assembly poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Sushma Swaraj cited health concerns behind her decision to not contest the upcoming general elections.
Talking to journalists in Indore, the former Delhi chief minister Swaraj said she had informed the party’s top leadership about her decision, though it is the party leadership only which will take the final call over it.
The 66-year-old senior BJP leader said she has to take maximum precautions, including avoiding dust, due to which she isn’t addressing any open public meetings in election-bound MP and just staying confined to indoor party meetings.
In December 2016, Swaraj had undergone kidney transplant at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, after which she has been taking maximum health-related precautions.
Swaraj has been the Lok Sabha member from Vidisha since 2009. The Vidisha seat which neighbours Bhopal has been a BJP citadel since 1989. Before Swaraj’s two terms (2009 and 2014), the seat has been represented in the Lok Sabha by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee once, five times by present MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and two times by former MP finance minister Raghav ji.
As Swaraj has been away from her constituency for over a year now, the opposition Congress has been making her absence in Vidisha a political issue. Posters questioning Swaraj’s absence from Vidisha have often been put up in Vidisha in the past by Congress workers.
Located around 60 km from MP capital Bhopal, the Vidisha district along with seven other districts of MP has been listed by the NITI Ayog among the most backward districts of the country in March 2018.
Swaraj is the second senior woman politician of BJP to have decided not to contest the LS polls. Earlier in February, another union minister and ex-MP CM Uma Bharti (presently Lok Sabha member from Jhansi in UP) had announced not contesting any elections for next three years due to health issues. Bharti, however, had clarified that she isn’t retiring from politics.
According to sources, the ruling BJP after Swaraj’s decision to not contest 2019 polls might render her a berth in the Rajya Sabha.