Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee on Thursday, 16 January, confirmed to The Quint that she will not be contesting elections to the Delhi Assembly due to “personal reasons.”
The 54-year-old leader, who’s also the daughter of former President of India and Congress stalwart Pranab Mukherjee, however, dismissed rumours suggesting she had turned down the party’s ticket in Delhi.
“I am an office bearer and very much a part of the Congress party. I am not a very senior leader that I would be approached with a ticket. We generally apply on our own and this time, I have decided not to contest due to personal reasons,” she said.
Meanwhile, reports also suggested that former Delhi Pradesh Congess Committee President and two-time MP Ajay Maken has also refused to contest.
In the run up to 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mukherjee had resigned from the party post “to avoid any kind of overlapping of responsibility and work” and had expressed interest in contesting polls on a party ticket.
Mukherjee, an alumnus of St Stephen’s College, Delhi, had contested in the 2015 Delhi elections from Greater Kailash, coming third with 6,102 votes.
Ajay Maken Refuses to Contest: Sources
In what may be another blow to the Congress, many reports claimed that former DPCC President and two-time MP Ajay Maken has also declined to contest. Sources told The Quint that Maken is travelling abroad and has allegedly refused to contest after successive electoral defeats.
Maken had lost the Sadar Bazar seat by 50,000 votes in the last assembly polls and also lost the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat to BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi in 2014 and 2019.
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