Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi on Wednesday said he won’t be able to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as he has been “fighting with cancer for the past six months”.
In a post on X in Hindi, the 72-year-old leader also said he announced his diagnosis since he felt that “the time had come to tell people”.
The Rajya Sabha MP said that he would always remain grateful to the country, Bihar and the party and has even informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the development.
Reacting to Sushil Modi’s announcement, BJP leader and party MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said he was “deeply pained”. “I wish him speedy recovery,” he added.
Responding to the news, Modi’s friend and political rival Shivanand Tiwari hopes that the former’s “fighting spirit will continue in the face of illness”.
Sushil Modi served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar from July 2017 to November 2020.
In December 2020, he was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar to fill the vacant seat after Lok Janshakti Party supremo Ram Vilas Paswan died due to prolonged illness.
Despite his health setback, the BJP has included him in its 27-member Election Manifesto Committee, headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister Piyush Goyal will serve as the convenor and co-convenors, respectively.