MP scores will impact Rajya Sabha polls a month before Lok Sabha battle

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh assembly poll results will impact the Rajya Sabha elections before next year’s Lok Sabha polls.

The term of five Rajya Sabha members from MP ends in April — four are with BJP, including the seats of Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and L Murugan, and one with Congress.

To understand just how volatile things can get in the fight for an Upper House berth, one only needs to look at March 2020, when the tussle over a single Rajya Sabha seat triggered a chain of events that brought down the Kamal Nath-led Congress government just 15 months after a historic victory.

It takes 58 votes to elect a Rajya Sabha MP. In the March 2020 RS polls, three seats were up for grabs and Congress, with 114 MLAs, stood a better chance of getting two of them but needed two votes for the second seat. Who would be picked for the ‘safe seat’ turned into a battle that left Congress bloodied and out of power the same month as Jyotiraditya Scindia rebelled and joined BJP with his supporters.

Madhya Pradesh has 11 RS seats — eight are with BJP and three with Congress. The five seats falling vacant in April 2024 include BJP’s Pradhan, Murugan, Kailash Soni and Ajay Pratap Singh, and Congress’s Rajmani Patel.

Murugan was elected to the Upper House on the seat vacated by then Union minister Thawarchand Gehlot when he was appointed Karnataka governor in 2021. The term of Scindia and Solanki is till 2026 and that of Patidar and Valmiki till 2028.

The Congress members include Vivek Tankha, Digvijaya Singh and Rajmani Patel.

Patel’s term ends in April next year. Digvijaya’s term is till 2026 while Tankha’s term is till 2028.