Sushma Swaraj not to contest 2019 Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi/Indore: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, one of the most prominent faces of the BJP and the Narendra Modi government, announced on Tuesday that she had “made up her mind” not to contest the 2019 general election due to “health reasons”. Ms Swaraj, 66, announced this at a media interaction in Indore in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh amid growing speculation within the party since early this year that she could be sent to the Rajya Sabha or appointed as a governor due to health reasons. Ms Swaraj, a former Delhi chief minister, has represented Vidisha in the Lok Sabha since 2009.

In Madhya Pradesh, the state BJP is abuzz with rumours that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s son Kartikeya could make his electoral debut either from Vidisha or Bhopal, considered as the party’s strongholds. Speculation in also rife in the BJP state unit that some other family member of the CM or one of his confidants could stand from Vidisha if Ms Swaraj is not contesting from there. Ms Swaraj, who is serving her fourth term in the Lok Sabha, told reporters in Indore: “It is the party which decides, but I have made up my mind not to contest the next (Lok Sabha) elections due to health reasons.” She had undergone a kidney transplant in 2016.

“After being elected from Vidisha as a Lok Sabha MP, I was the Leader of the Opposition. Later, I was given the responsibility of the external affairs ministry. Despite holding these prime posts, I used to visit all Assembly segments in my constituency every month for nearly eight years.

“Doctors have advised me that I should avoid exposure to dust. Because of this, I am unable to take part even in election rallies. Due to health reasons, I can’t participate in outdoor public programmes... I have also told my party leadership that in view of health reasons, I have to avoid such exposure,” Ms Swaraj said.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek “Manu” Singhvi said it was her personal decision, and declined to comment any further.

Ms Swaraj’s husband Swaraj Kaushal, a former governor of Mizoram, posted “thank you” on Twitter, and said that even Milkha Singh had one day stopped running.

A spell-binding orator in Hindi, Ms Swaraj is among the few top politicians capable of speaking in English with equal ease, and has had a few rare distinctions, including being the youngest Cabinet minister at 25, when she had joined the Haryana government in 1977, and the first woman chief minister of Delhi.

She is also the first woman external affairs minister of the country though Indira Gandhi, as Prime Minister, had held charge of the portfolio.

Ms Swaraj also served in the Rajya Sabha for three terms and was a member of the Haryana Assembly — the state she comes from — twice.

Ms Swaraj’s most notable political battle was the one against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Ballari in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. She was her party’s nationalist woman counter to Mrs Gandhi, often attacked by the BJP for her Italian origins. Ms Swaraj’s intensive campaign, when she gained proficiency in Kannada, won her innumerable local hearts with her speeches in their language, but Mrs Gandhi, fighting her first Lok Sabha election in a region then seen as her party’s pocket borough, got the better of her. Ms Swaraj fell short of victory, but grew in stature.