Rajya Sabha election for MP’s three seats on June 18, all likely to be elected unopposed

Rajya Sabha election for MP’s three seats on June 18, all likely to be elected unopposed

Suchandana.Gupta

Bhopal: The Election Commission on Friday announced the election of 24 seats to the Rajya Sabha on June 18, of which three are from Madhya Pradesh. BJP will send two members to the Rajya Sabha while the opposition Congress will get one. Seats that will be vacated after completion of tenure are those presently occupied by Union minister of state for fisheries and animal husbandry George Kurien, BJP’s Sumer Singh Solanki and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh.

Nomination filing for the Upper House elections will start on June 1 and end on June 8. Polling, if required, will be held between 9 am and 4 pm on June 18 while the election process will be completed by June 20.

In Madhya Pradesh, it is likely that all three new MPs will be elected unopposed. BJP has 165 MLAs and Congress has 64 in the state assembly of 230 members. One seat is with the Bharatiya Adivasi Party. The magic number to win a Rajya Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh is 58. BJP can comfortably send its two Upper House MPs with 58+58 seats =116. The number remaining with the BJP is 49. The Congress has 64 MLAs, even after the disqualification of its MLA from Datia seat Rajendra Bharti after he was sentenced by a Delhi Rouse Avenue Court for three years in a bank fraud case.

But even with 64 MLAs, Congress will have only 62 legislators who will vote. Party MLA from Vijaypur constituency will be unable to vote following Supreme Court directions, while another Congress MLA Nirmala Sapre defected and publicly joined a BJP election meeting on May 5, 2024 during the Lok Sabha elections. Sapre’s case in sub-judice and being heard by the Jabalpur High Court.

In Mukesh Malhotra’s case, the Gwalior bench of the High Court annulled his election from Vijaypur constituency on March 9 for non-disclosure of criminal cases in the affidavit submitted with the election nomination form. However, ten days after the High Court’s direction, the Supreme Court overturned the previous order and retained Malhotra’s MLA status but put two restrictions – the Congress MLA cannot vote or receive his salary until the court’s final verdict.

Even with 62 votes, the Congress has the numbers to send an MP unopposed to the Rajya Sabha. State Congress media department chairman and former minister Mukesh Nayak argued, “We are confident and will send our MP to the Upper House.” Nevertheless, in the Rajya Sabha elections held in March, cross-voting by non-BJP MLAs became a major issue in Odisha and Haryana. In Odisha, the Congress party expelled three MLAs for cross voting.

“Those who left Congress and joined BJP have suffered immensely,” Mukesh Nayak said. “They have been humiliated. We have the required numbers and are sure that none of our MLAs would venture to go against Congress. So cross-voting is out of the question,” he said. Congress MP Digvijaya Singh announced in Jan this year, that he will vacate the Upper House seat. This means that Congress will have to look for a new candidate.

State BJP spokesman Ajay Singh Yadav said, “The state party election committee will hold its meeting soon and send a list of names to the central leadership. The final names will be decided by in New Delhi.” Asked if the BJP is eyeing the Congress’ seat also, Ajay Yadav said, “After sending both the members to the Upper House, we will still have an excess of 49 MLAs while Congress will have four. If there is such a situation of dispute and break within the Congress party because of their factional politics, then the BJP leadership may take a call. But nothing of that nature is under consideration right now.”