Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Monday said that his Cabinet colleagues and Rajya Sabha MPs Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, but the constituencies from where they would seek votes are yet to be decided.
“More or less, it is certain that both will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. But from where they will contest, Karnataka or other states, is yet to be decided,” the Union minister of parliamentary affairs, coal and mines told reporters at Hubballi.
There were rumours that one among FM Sitharaman and external affairs minister Jaishankar would contest from a constituency in Karnataka’s coastal districts, and the other from one of the three constituencies in Bengaluru.
Sitharaman was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka for the second time in 2022, and Jaishankar from Gujarat in 2019.
On Mandya Independent MP Sumalatha insisting that she would once again contest from the seat, Joshi said the national leaders of BJP will discuss and take a call on the same. Sumalatha, riding on a sympathy wave following her actor-turned-politician husband Ambareesh’s demise, won from Mandya in 2019. Though she is learnt to be inching towards the BJP, her candidature for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls has become complicated following the alliance between the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular). JD(S) leaders have demanded the Mandya seat for the party.
Joshi said he had spoken to Sumalatha during the recently concluded budget session of Parliament. “Unlike now, the issue was not ripe then. We will address the issue,” he said.
On whether Sumalatha would cause a problem for the alliance in the constituency, he said that the party leadership would set it right. “I am confident about the BJP and JD(S) prospects (in the coming polls),” he said.