BJP's Sushil Modi battling cancer, won't contest Lok Sabha polls
Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader and former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, has announced that he won't be able to campaign in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as he has been battling cancer for last six months. He made the announcement on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. Modi, however, will remain part of the party's 27-member Election Manifesto Committee, which will be headed by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.
Modi's statement on health and political commitment
In his statement, Modi wrote, "I have been battling cancer for the last six months. Now I feel that the time has come to tell people. I will not be able to do anything in the Lok Sabha elections." He added, "I have told everything to the PM. Always grateful and always dedicated to the country, Bihar and the party." Over the course of his three-decade political career, Modi has been an MLA, an MLC, a member of Lok Sabha.
His political journey
He got involved in politics while he was a student at Patna University in the 1970s. He first became an MLA in 1990 from the Patna Central constituency. Then, from 1996 to 2004, he served as the leader of the opposition in the Bihar Assembly. In 2004, he was elected to Lok Sabha from Bhagalpur. The following year, he resigned from the Lok Sabha and joined the legislative council, after which he was appointed deputy chief minister.
He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020
He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020, but the BJP dropped his name for the Rajya Sabha elections in February. In 2022, he made headlines after he filed a criminal defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the latter's statement that "all Modis are thieves." Based on the speech, Modi filed the case, saying it was a derogatory statement directed at people with the Modi surname.
