New Delhi: Within a gap of a few hours Saturday, former Union minister Jayant Sinha, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh seat, as well as Gautam Gambhir, the cricketer-turned-politician who is also the BJP MP from East Delhi, requested party president J.P. Nadda to ‘relieve’ them of their ‘political and electoral’ responsibilities.
Gambhir made the announcement Saturday in a post on X, amid speculation that the BJP might not field him from his East Delhi seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
“I have requested Hon’ble Party President @JPNadda ji to relieve me of my political duties so that I can focus on my upcoming cricket commitments. I sincerely thank Hon’ble PM @narendramodi ji and Hon’ble HM @AmitShah ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the people. Jai Hind!,” he wrote.
He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for giving him the opportunity to serve the people.
I have requested Hon’ble Party President @JPNadda ji to relieve me of my political duties so that I can focus on my upcoming cricket commitments. I sincerely thank Hon’ble PM @narendramodi ji and Hon’ble HM @AmitShah ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the people. Jai Hind!
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) March 2, 2024
Barely hours after Gambhir made the announcement, Jayant Sinha too said in a somewhat similar post on X that he had requested Nadda to relieve him of his “direct electoral duties” so that he can focus his efforts on “combating climate change in Bharat and around the world”.
Sinha, who served as Minister of State (MoS) for finance and civil aviation in the first Modi administration, added that he will “continue to work with the party on economic and governance issues”. He too, like Gambhir, thanked PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for giving him the opportunity to serve the people.
I have requested Hon’ble Party President Shri @JPNadda ji to relieve me of my direct electoral duties so that I can focus my efforts on combating global climate change in Bharat and around the world. Of course, I will continue to work with the party on economic and governance…
— Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) March 2, 2024
According to party sources, the BJP was unlikely to field Gambhir again in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and he had met the party’s national general secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santhosh last month. It is also learnt that the Delhi BJP unit and the central leadership had sought feedback from workers across Delhi about the performance of the sitting MPs.
The BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Thursday to deliberate on candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi from a panel of 17-18 names that were finalised after a meeting of the Delhi unit the previous day, sources said.
According to a senior BJP leader, Delhi BJP president Virendraa Sachdeva and general secretary Harshdeep Malhotra are also in the race for a ticket for the East Delhi seat. “His (Gambhir’s) reports were not good and many workers had complained about his attitude. Many times he used to skip party programmes. But a final decision on his candidature will be taken by the central leadership,” a Delhi BJP functionary told ThePrint.
“The decision regarding him (Gambhir) contesting Lok Sabha elections in 2019 was taken by the central leadership and even now they will decide what is to be done,” the functionary added.
According to party sources, the BJP is considering changing at least five of its sitting MPs in Delhi.
After he retired from all forms of cricket in 2018, Gambhir joined the BJP months before the 2019 general election and defeated Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi to clinch the East Delhi seat. This time around, the AAP has fielded its sitting MLA from Kondli Kuldeep Kumar from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
Of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, the BJP won all in 2014 and again in 2019.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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