BHOPAL: Former chief minister Uma Bharti on Monday indicated she will return to electoral politics. Bharti, who did not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, has said she will contest in 2024 but hasn’t mentioned any constituency of preference.
She was elected to Lok Sabha four times from Khajuraho from 1989 to 1998. Then, she represented Bhopal from 1999 till she became chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in December 2003. In 2014, she contested from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. Khajuraho is presently represented by state BJP president V D Sharma and Bhopal by Pragya Singh Thakur. Anurag Sharma is the BJP MP from Jhansi.
“When I declined to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I had said that I would contest in 2024,” she said on Monday.
At a function in Chhatarpur, the former Union minister said, “For me, it is a matter of joy that I make the government and someone else runs it.”
Though she spoke in the context of the Lalitpur-Singrauli railway line and Ken-Betwa riverlink project, it was apparent that she was referring to 2003 when BJP announced her as the chief ministerial candidate opposite Congress’ Digvijaya Singh. She toiled for a year and BJP came to power with three-fourth majority in the state. Bharti was sworn in as chief minister but could not survive in the seat for more than eight months.
Bharti’s statement has come at a time when RSS chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat is in Ujjain. She recalled that while the Lalitpur-Singrauli railway line and Ken-Betwa project advanced because of her efforts, she did not get the opportunity to sit on the dais.
In August 2004, a court in Hubli (Karnataka) ordered her arrest in a case of rioting that occurred on Independence Day in 1994. Five persons were killed in police firing as Bharti allegedly disobeyed a prohibitory order against hoisting of the national flag. She stepped down as Madhya Pradesh CM and asked the senior-most MLA, Babulal Gaur, to take charge. But Bharti was never given the opportunity to return to the post of CM.
In November 2004, she was suspended from the party for openly speaking up against her political godfather, L K Advani. The party revoked the suspension but in November 2005, she rebelled against the party for nominating Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister. A month later, she was expelled from primary membership of BJP. After six years she was brought back by Nitin Gadkari, then BJP national president, to the party though she was largely kept away from Madhya Pradesh politics
