{"id":311041,"date":"2019-04-05T11:15:03","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T11:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=311041"},"modified":"2019-04-05T11:15:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T11:15:03","slug":"wont-contest-lok-sabha-polls-says-sumitra-mahajan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/wont-contest-lok-sabha-polls-says-sumitra-mahajan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Won\u2019t Contest Lok Sabha Polls\u2019, says Sumitra Mahajan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-303454 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sumitra-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"477\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/sumitra-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/sumitra-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/sumitra-265x198.jpg 265w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/sumitra-561x420.jpg 561w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/sumitra.jpg 647w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 477px) 100vw, 477px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday announced that she will not be contesting the Lok Sabha elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mahajan, who is an eight-time MP from Indore wrote a letter in which she questioned the delay over the announcement of a candidate for the Indore seat which she has won since 1989.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not declared its candidate from Indore. Why this state of indecision? Maybe the party is hesitant in taking a call. It is possible they have some doubts. Even though I had a discussion with the senior party leaders and left the decision to them. It seems they still have reservations, therefore I announce that I will not contest Lok Sabha elections, so party is free to decide, without any hesitation,&#8221; Sumitra Mahajan wrote in her letter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mahajan turns 76 on April 12, just above the BJP&#8217;s\u00a0age bar for candidates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cThere were speculations and so I decided to end them and free the party to make its choice. I will not contest Lok Sabha elections,\u201d Mahajan said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The BJP has not fielded many of its veterans including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in the Lok Sabha elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Indore will go to the polls on May 19, the last phase of the parliamentary polls. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday announced that she will not be contesting the Lok Sabha elections. Mahajan, who is an eight-time MP from Indore wrote a letter in which she questioned the delay over the announcement of a candidate for the Indore seat which she has won since 1989. &#8220;The Bharatiya Janata Party [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":303454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,1801],"tags":[453,1345,3723],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311042,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311041\/revisions\/311042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/303454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}