Rajya Sabha polls: Fears of cross-voting, hints from BJP leaders make Congress cautious

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A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress announced their candidates for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh, political buzz has picked up pace in the State with leaders of the ruling parties hinting at fielding a candidate for the third seat and Congress calling a meeting of its MLAs.

On Thursday (June 4) evening, the BJP fielded its national general secretary Tarun Chug and state unit secretary Rajneesh Agrawal for the two seats from the State it is comfortably positioned to win. The Congress also fielded former Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Natarajan, a confidant of Rahul Gandhi, as the Opposition party has the numbers to secure one seat.

The three seats that are going to fall vacant from Madhya Pradesh are currently held by Union Minister George Kurien, BJP MP Sumer Singh Solanki, and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh.

In the 230-seat-strong Assembly, the BJP currently has 164 MLAs while the Congress has 64 and one seat is held by the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP). Apart from this, one Congress MLA, Rajendra Bharti of Datia, was disqualified from the State Assembly in April after he was convicted in a fraud case.

Each candidate needs 58 first preference votes to secure the seat.

As per the numbers, the BJP is poised to win two seats with 48 MLAs to spare. The party will require additional 10 votes to secure the third seat.

Whereas the Congress appears to be safely securing one seat to the Parliament’s Upper House, the Opposition party faces fears of cross voting and discontent against Ms. Natarajan which has already started to come to fore.

Of the 64, Congress MLA from Vijaypur Mukesh Malhotra has been barred from casting his vote for the Rajya Sabha polls. Mr. Malhotra was convicted by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in an election affidavit case for non-disclosure of criminal cases. While the Supreme Court stayed the order of his disqualification, it barred him from taking part in the RS polling.

Another Congress MLA, Nirmala Sapre from Bina