BJP Minister Pralhad Joshi says Sitharaman, Jaishankar to contest Lok Sabha polls, later retracts statement

A day after he said that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Tuesday retracted his statement by saying that he had said that anybody can contest, and not specifically named anyone.

Sitharaman and Jaishankar are Rajya Sabha members from Karnataka and Gujarat, respectively. They have been MPs for a long time now but haven’t faced popular elections.

“I have only said that anybody can contest, and not specifically (named anyone). It is a national party and our leadership will decide. I have not said it like that,” PTI quoted Joshi as saying.

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Joshi, who holds the Coal and Mines portfolio, had told reporters in Karnata’s Hubballi on Monday that Sitharaman and Jaishankar will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections but it wasn’t yet decided as to where they will contest from.

“It is appearing in the media. More or less it is final that they (Nirmala Sitharaman and Jaishankar) will contest the Lok Sabha elections. It has not been decided yet from where they will fight, whether it is in Karnataka or some other state,” PTI quoted Joshi as saying on Monday.

To a question whether it will be Bengaluru, Joshi said, “How can I answer when nothing has been finalised?”

Sitharaman joined the BJP in 2008 and served as the national spokesperson of the party till 2014. She became a junior minister after Narendra Modi became the prime minister of the country. The same year she became a member of the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh.

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Sitharaman also served as the defence minister of the country from 2017 to 2019.

Jaishankar is a career diplomat. In 2015, he served as the foreign secretary. In 2019, he was inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Over the years, he has attained popularity on social media due to his staunch defence of the Indian foreign policy on international forums.

With inputs from agencies