After Natarajan setback, Congress stares at shrinking Parliament presence in MP
Advertisement
Bhopal, June 10 : With Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination rejected and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) set to sweep all three Rajya Sabha seats, the Congress is left with just two MPs out of Madhya Pradesh’s 40-member parliamentary contingent (29 Lok Sabha and 11 Rajya Sabha), its weakest representation from the state in recent history.
With the nomination deadline already past, the party has no opportunity to field a substitute candidate, paving the way for the unopposed election of all three BJP nominees to the Upper House.
The development has dramatically altered the Congress’s parliamentary presence in Madhya Pradesh. The state sends 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 members to the Rajya Sabha. Following the BJP’s clean sweep of all 29 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general election, the Congress no longer has a single representative from Madhya Pradesh in the Lower House. After Natarajan’s nomination was rejected, the party is left with only two Rajya Sabha members from the state, while having just 62 legislators in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly.
The setback is significant because the Congress had viewed the Rajya Sabha election as an opportunity to maintain at least a limited parliamentary presence from Madhya Pradesh at a time when its organisational and electoral challenges in the state continue to mount. Unless Congress substantially improves its position in the Assembly, retaining these seats in future Rajya Sabha elections may prove difficult.
Senior Congress Rajya Sabha member and advocate Vivek Tankha is scheduled to complete his term in June 2028, coinciding with the run-up to the next Madhya Pradesh Assembly election. The party’s other Rajya Sabha representative from the state, Ashok Singh, will complete his tenure in 2030.
After meeting Election Commission officials in New Delhi along with senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Tankha questioned the larger democratic implications of the decision. “By disqualifying a national party’s candidate from the election, you have handed a walkover to another party’s candidate; such a walkover is not good for democracy,” he said. He argued that democratic institutions should encourage electoral competition rather than leave a major political party without representation. Tankha indicated that Congress would challenge the decision before the Supreme Court, with the party expected to file its petition on Thursday.
Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh termed the development a serious assault on democratic traditions and alleged that constitutional norms had been undermined. “Democracy was murdered in Madhya Pradesh yesterday,” Singh said, adding that during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, electoral processes were conducted with greater adherence to established rules and conventions.
The BJP denied any role in the cancellation of Natarajan’s nomination and blamed an internal rift within the Madhya Pradesh Congress unit. BJP leader and Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya dismissed the Congress's allegations and suggested that the controversy had exposed internal fissures within the opposition camp. “Who provided us with the documents? You can understand the state of the Congress party from this. We are receiving documents from Telangana, where they are in power. We must have received the information from people within the Congress,” he said.
The Rajya Sabha candidature of Meenakshi Natarajan, a former MP and close associate of the Congress high command, was part of the party’s strategy to broaden its social outreach ahead of the next Assembly election.
Reacting sharply to the Election Commission’s decision, Madhya Pradesh Congress President Jitu Patwari accused the BJP of orchestrating a political conspiracy to prevent the opposition from securing representation in the Rajya Sabha. “This is not just the rejection of Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination; this is the murder of democracy in Madhya Pradesh,” Patwari said.
Announcing a statewide agitation, he said the Congress would launch continuous protests at the block, district and Assembly levels across Madhya Pradesh from Thursday while simultaneously pursuing legal remedies in the Supreme Court, turning the nomination controversy into both a political and judicial battle.
With the nomination deadline already past, the party has no opportunity to field a substitute candidate, paving the way for the unopposed election of all three BJP nominees to the Upper House.
The development has dramatically altered the Congress’s parliamentary presence in Madhya Pradesh. The state sends 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 members to the Rajya Sabha. Following the BJP’s clean sweep of all 29 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general election, the Congress no longer has a single representative from Madhya Pradesh in the Lower House. After Natarajan’s nomination was rejected, the party is left with only two Rajya Sabha members from the state, while having just 62 legislators in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly.
The setback is significant because the Congress had viewed the Rajya Sabha election as an opportunity to maintain at least a limited parliamentary presence from Madhya Pradesh at a time when its organisational and electoral challenges in the state continue to mount. Unless Congress substantially improves its position in the Assembly, retaining these seats in future Rajya Sabha elections may prove difficult.
Senior Congress Rajya Sabha member and advocate Vivek Tankha is scheduled to complete his term in June 2028, coinciding with the run-up to the next Madhya Pradesh Assembly election. The party’s other Rajya Sabha representative from the state, Ashok Singh, will complete his tenure in 2030.
After meeting Election Commission officials in New Delhi along with senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Tankha questioned the larger democratic implications of the decision. “By disqualifying a national party’s candidate from the election, you have handed a walkover to another party’s candidate; such a walkover is not good for democracy,” he said. He argued that democratic institutions should encourage electoral competition rather than leave a major political party without representation. Tankha indicated that Congress would challenge the decision before the Supreme Court, with the party expected to file its petition on Thursday.
Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh termed the development a serious assault on democratic traditions and alleged that constitutional norms had been undermined. “Democracy was murdered in Madhya Pradesh yesterday,” Singh said, adding that during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure, electoral processes were conducted with greater adherence to established rules and conventions.
The BJP denied any role in the cancellation of Natarajan’s nomination and blamed an internal rift within the Madhya Pradesh Congress unit. BJP leader and Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya dismissed the Congress's allegations and suggested that the controversy had exposed internal fissures within the opposition camp. “Who provided us with the documents? You can understand the state of the Congress party from this. We are receiving documents from Telangana, where they are in power. We must have received the information from people within the Congress,” he said.
The Rajya Sabha candidature of Meenakshi Natarajan, a former MP and close associate of the Congress high command, was part of the party’s strategy to broaden its social outreach ahead of the next Assembly election.
Reacting sharply to the Election Commission’s decision, Madhya Pradesh Congress President Jitu Patwari accused the BJP of orchestrating a political conspiracy to prevent the opposition from securing representation in the Rajya Sabha. “This is not just the rejection of Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination; this is the murder of democracy in Madhya Pradesh,” Patwari said.
Announcing a statewide agitation, he said the Congress would launch continuous protests at the block, district and Assembly levels across Madhya Pradesh from Thursday while simultaneously pursuing legal remedies in the Supreme Court, turning the nomination controversy into both a political and judicial battle.
Advertisement
Note: The content of this article is sourced from a news agency and has not been edited by the ap7am team.