Why the stakes are high in Rajya Sabha polls to the three seats in Madhya Pradesh
The Rajya Sabha elections to three seats in Madhya Pradesh, which were to be held in March and which were the setting for the political drama that eventually lead to the collapse of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government, will finally be held on June 19.
The BJP has fielded Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sumer Singh Solanki as its candidates while the Congress has given the nomination to Digvijaya Singh and Phool Singh Baraiya. The way the numbers are stacked, the BJP may win two seats while the Congress will win one for sure. Before the defection of 22 Congress MLAs and their resignation, the Congress had the numbers to win two seats while the BJP would have won one seat.
At present, the MP assembly has a strength of 206 with 24 seats lying vacant. Given the numbers, a candidate needs 53 votes to win the seat. Congress has 92 MLAs in the House while the BJP has 107. Four seats are held by independents, two by the BSP and one by the SP. The Congress would need 106 votes to win the second seat which in other words means 14 more votes than what it has. Even if it does get the votes of 7 MLAs that had been supporting it from outside, it still needs 7 more votes.
With the likelihood of seven BJP MLAs voting against their candidates, the party is concerned. This is reflected in the party’s strategy to delay the swearing-in, till the Rajya Sabha elections to prevent any possibility of cross-voting by dissatisfied BJP MLAs who aren’t accommodated in the cabinet. Moreover, the BJP has engineered a defection recently and is aware that it is something that is not in the realm of impossible now. Both parties have convened meetings of their MLAs two days before the voting for the elections.
The three seats going to the polls went vacant with the completion of terms of Satyanarain Jatiya and Prabhat Jha of the BJP and Digvijaya Singh of the Congress.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)
Also read: The fall and rise of Jyotiraditya: Why Congress was not able to retain its floor manager