Sitharaman, Jaishankar will contest Lok Sabha polls, seats not decided, says Minister Pralhad Joshi

Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, their cabinet colleague Pralhad Joshi said on Monday without elaborating much on the subject.“It is more or less decided that they will contest the LS polls,” he told the media in Dharwad while adding that the party was yet to take a call on whether either of them should contest from Karnataka or both from outside.

It is often speculated that either Jaishankar or Sitharaman will contest from Bengaluru as the BJP won all three seats in the city in 2019. The FM represents Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha and is also quite familiar with Tamil Nadu and Telangana. Born in Madurai, she toured Tamil Nadu ahead of the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha in January and watched the ceremony from Kanchipuram. Jaishankar, who did his early schooling in Bengaluru, actively campaigned for the party ahead of the assembly polls, last year.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MoS in the ministry of Electronics & IT, is likely to contest from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, according to speculations in the BJP circles. The party has not re-nominated him for the Rajya Sabha paving way for his contest for the parliamentary elections. A businessman turned politician born to Malayali parents, Chandrasekhar backed Bengaluru-focussed campaigns in the past, but the party sources said the leadership may ask him to contest from Kerala’s capital. Congress member Shashi Tharoor currently holds Thiruvananthapuram seat.In the old Mysuru region, Mandya LS seat has become a bit contentious with sitting independent member Sumalatha Ambareesh firm on seeking re-election on the BJP ticket. A former popular South Indian actress Ambareesh won the 2019 polls with the backing of the BJP. But between then and now, a lot has changed with the locally dominant regional party JDS contesting the polls in alliance with the BJP.

JDS state president HD Kumaraswamy told media on Monday that he had been under pressure from party workers to contest the LS polls. Mandya is said to be one of the seats the party is said to be keen on.

Sumalatha, however, has been confident the BJP would back her with a ticket and retain the seat for the party.(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)