'Have not retired at all': Rajeev Chandrasekhar says he will be full-time party worker, 'Sipahi' of PM Modi 

BJP leader and former union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who unsuccessfully contested elections against Shashi Tharoor, on Wednesday said that he has not retired and has now become a full-time party worker. On the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi took oath, Chandrasekhar put out a tweet saying it was the end of his 18-year-long stint as an MP and 3 years as Minister of State in the Council of Ministers under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

When asked about his retirement from politics, Chandrasekhar said: "No I have not retired at all. In my social media post, I was relinquishing my 18 years of being an MP and now becoming a full-time party worker for the BJP and 'Sipahi' of Narendra Modi for working for his vision of Viksit Bharat." 

"Congress party and other people have jumped on that and tried to characterize that as some sort of retirement for me or me running away because I lost an election in Thiruvananthapuram. I fought a good election and more importantly, 3.5 lakh people of Kerala came out and supported the BJP. They supported Suresh Gopi and made him successful in Thrissur," he added.

The BJP for the first time has won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala. Chandrasekhar put up an impressive fight against Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram but lost the election by 16,000 votes. 

The former minister said that the BJP is not going anywhere. "Congress party which has gone to its historic third defeat in the last three elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024. The question that most congressmen are asking Rahul Gandhi is how come every time you are the leader we are losing and this election also they lost," he added.