RS polls: EC likely to hear Congress tomorrow over last-minute rejection of Natarajan's nomination

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission is likely to meet a Congress delegation on Wednesday over the rejection of Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination for the Rajya Sabha polls from Madhya Pradesh.This comes after Congress leaders protested outside the EC office in Delhi after the Returning Officer for the Rajya Sabha election rejected Natarajan's nomination on the grounds that she had allegedly concealed information about a case in her affidavit.Congress leaders, including Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal, Bhupesh Baghel and Sachin Pilot, arrived at the poll panel's office and engaged in a confrontation with security officials.Visuals from the scene showed Jairam Ramesh being stopped from entering the premises.Before heading to the ECI office, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal condemned the development, saying, "...Democracy has been killed...""Rejecting Smt Meenakshi Natarajan ji's nomination to the Rajya Sabha is a blatant attempt by the BJP to destroy the democratic process in a clandestine manner. The allegation of any error or non-disclosure in her nomination is complete humbug and a desperate attempt to snatch a seat from the INC. They stooped so low as to reject her nomination when they realised that their dirty tricks to compromise our INC MLAs were going to fail," Venugopal said in a social media post on X."This shows the BJP's hollow commitment to the Constitution and democracy. At every step of the way, they are hell-bent on vote chori — one way or another. We will not take this daylight robbery of democracy lying down and will fight this legally as well as politically on the streets, tooth and nail," he added.Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav hailed the decision and called on the Congress party to "introspect"."As you all know, the Congress candidate concealed information about a criminal background. It should have been declared. But unfortunately, the Congress people concealed it. I welcome this scrutiny. Now the Congress should introspect. They were in fear. We welcome the decision," he said.The decision to cancel Natarajan's nomination was taken following a complaint submitted by BJP candidate Mahesh Kewat, who is contesting the third Rajya Sabha seat. The complaint alleged that Natarajan deliberately hid information about a case filed against her in Telangana.Sanket Gupta, the lawyer representing Kewat, told reporters that a criminal case is pending against Natarajan in a Telangana court and was not mentioned in the affidavit.He said the Returning Officer rejected her nomination on this basis."This information has been deliberately concealed. According to Supreme Court guidelines, you are required to provide this information in the affidavit. Kewat had filed an objection to Natarajan's candidacy under this same provision," he added.He claimed several other deficiencies were found in the nomination.Congress's Madhya Pradesh in-charge, Harish Chaudhary, claimed that no case had been filed against Natarajan and that the BJP was raising such issues to harass her.He said Natarajan had received a show-cause notice from the court and that it was not necessary to mention it in the affidavit. He said the Election Commission's instructions are clear that information must be provided in the nomination when a case is filed, not upon receiving a notice."Technically, Natarajan's nomination cannot be rejected," Chaudhary added.Earlier in the day, Congress leaders alleged poaching attempts by the BJP and shifted their MLAs to Congress-ruled Karnataka to prevent cross-voting."All Congress MLAs are being shifted to Bengaluru in party-ruled Karnataka," Saunsar MLA Vijay Revanath Choure told news agency PTI.The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly forms the electoral college for the Rajya Sabha election. With the House's effective strength reduced to 229 due to a vacancy, a candidate needs 58 first-preference votes to secure a seat in the Upper House.The BJP currently has 164 MLAs, while the Congress has 64 and the Bharat Adivasi Party one. The Assembly's strength fell by one after Congress MLA Rajendra Bharti's membership from the Datia constituency was revoked.On paper, the BJP has enough numbers to comfortably win two of the three seats, requiring 116 votes in total. After securing those two victories, it will be left with 48 votes — 10 short of the 58 needed for a third seat. The Congress, meanwhile, has four votes more than the minimum required to elect its candidate.Ahead of the June 18 election, the BJP is assured of winning two seats with 116 votes and has fielded party national general secretary Tarun Chugh and state unit secretary Rajneesh Agrawal.Kewat, who is chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Fishermen Welfare Board, has been fielded by the BJP as its third candidate.