Bhopal, Sep 29 (IANS): Madhya Pradesh Cabinet Minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia, who is the aunt of Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, has announced that she will not contest the upcoming state Assembly elections.

The fourth-time sitting MLA from Shivpuri constituency and two-times former MP from Gwalior has conveyed her decision to the state leadership.

In a letter to the state leadership, she has cited health reasons behind her desire to not contest the polls.

Confirming the development, state BJP president V.D. Sharma told journalists here Friday that "Yashodhara Ji is our senior and respected leader, who had informed the party around three months back about her unwillingness to contest the polls, due to pressing health reasons."

Yashodhara Raje Scindia, the youngest among the five children of veteran BJP leaders Vijaya Raje Scindia had won the Shivpuri seat in 1998, 2003, 2013, and 2018 and also won two Lok Sabha elections from Gwalior in 2007 and 2009.

The 69-year-old cabinet minister’s desire of not contesting the coming Assembly polls, meanwhile, has fuelled speculations about possibility of her nephew Jyotiraditya Scindia making his Vidhan Sabha poll debut from either his aunt’s Shivpuri seat or either the Bamori or Kolaras seats. These three assembly seats are the parts of his Lok Sabha seat Guna, which he lost to BJP’s K. P. Yadav in 2019 general elections.

Speculations were particularly strengthened, due to the BJP naming seven of its sitting MPs, including three Union Ministers, as candidates in the 39-strong second list for MP Assembly polls released recently.