Bhopal: Senior BJP leader and former chief minister Uma Bharti on Wednesday ruled out contesting in the year-end assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.
The saffron leader’s statement comes a couple of days after she created a flutter in the ruling BJP circle here by making public her disappointment over being overlooked in the party’s mass outreach campaign, Jan Ashirwad Yatra, currently underway in the poll-bound state.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Ms Bharti asked the media to stop speculating on her joining the fray in the forthcoming assembly elections in the state, due in November this year, saying that “I am not going to contest in the 2023 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh”.
Ms Bharti however said that she would be available to campaign for the party in the polls in the state.
The BJP leader had earlier said that she respected chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as her brother and she would oblige him whenever he asked her to join the election campaign of the party.
The BJP has however sought to downplay the issue relating to Ms Bharti’s grievances of not being invited to the Jan Ashirwad Yatra, saying that ‘There might be some communication gap’.
“She (Ms Bharti) is not dissenting. There might be some communication gap”, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has earlier said.
Ms Bharti had steered BJP to power in Madhya Pradesh in 2003 assembly elections and became chief minister.
She however had to quit the post after eight months following a non-bailable warrant issued against her in connection with a 1994 riot case in Hubli, Karnataka.
She was expelled from the party in 2005 following a public spat with BJP patriarch L K Advani.
She rejoined the party later.
She won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and became a minister at the Centre.
She had however declined to contest in the 2019 LS polls citing her ill health and spiritual mission linked to Ganga.
