Amid speculation about her candidature from the Indore Lok Sabha constituency and denial of ticket to veterans like LK Advani and MM Joshi, outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahan on Friday said she would not contest the elections.
Mahajan, 76, wrote an open letter questioning the delay over the announcement of candidature for the seat she has been winning since 1989. “I thought the party was hesitant so I told them to take a decision,” she said.
The BJP has replaced Advani, 92, with party president Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, and Joshi, 85, with Satyadev Pachauri, UP Minister, from Kanpur. A miffed Joshi wrote an open letter informing voters in his constituency that the party had asked him not to contest.
Informing reporters in Indore, Mahajan said she has written to BJP chief about her decision of not contesting the polls, she said, “I have made the party worry-free.”
Mahajan, who turns 76 next Friday, said there had been speculation whether the party would field someone who has crossed the 75-year age bar.
“There were speculation and so I decided to end them and free the party to make its choice. I will not contest the Lok Sabha elections,” she told news agency PTI.
Mahajan, popularly known as ‘Tai’ (elder sister in Marathi) however, maintained that she would continue to work for the party and campaign for it.
“The party (BJP) had not been able to name a candidate (from Indore Lok Sabha seat) for so many days and there were speculation if someone over 75 years of age will be fielded. So I decided to end all this,” she said.
Shah had in an interview to The Week magazine on Thursday reportedly stated that it was his party’s decision not to give Lok Sabha poll tickets to those above 75 years of age. Though he had not named Mahajan, the outgoing Lok Sabha speaker too falls in the same age bracket.
Shah, however, earlier said there is no age bar for contesting elections and veterans would decide for themselves.
The Indore MP, for some time, seemed to be optimistic that the party might ultimately give her ticket, given the fact that Indore was her pocket borough.
Mahajan was first elected to the Lok Sabha from Indore in 1989 and has won all the seven consecutive elections. In 2014, she defeated her nearest rival, Satyanarayan Patel of the Congress, by a staggering margin of 4,66,901 votes.
She was a Minister of State in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government, holding portfolios of human resources development, telecom and petroleum between 1999 and 2004.
The BJP has, till now, declared 18 candidates in Madhya Pradesh, which has 29 Lok Sabha seats.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, MP from Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uma Bharti, MP from Janshi, UP, have already opted out of Lok Sabha poll.