Rajya Sabha polls: Fears of cross-voting and advice from BJP leaders make Congress cautious

A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress announced their candidates for three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh, the political frenzy in the state picked up pace with ruling party leaders hinting that they will field a candidate for the third seat and the Congress calling a meeting of its MLAs.

On Thursday (June 4) evening, the BJP fielded its national general secretary Tarun Chug and state unit secretary Rajneesh Agrawal for two seats from the state, for which it is comfortably positioned. The Congress has also fielded former Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Natarajan, a confidant of Rahul Gandhi, as the opposition party has the numbers to secure one seat.

The three seats to be vacated from Madhya Pradesh are currently held by Union Minister George Kurien, BJP MP Sumer Singh Solanki and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh.

In the 230-seat assembly, the BJP currently has 164 MLAs, while the Congress has 64 and the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) has one seat. Besides, one Congress MLA, Rajendra Bharti from Datia, was disqualified from the State Assembly in April after he was convicted in a fraud case.

Each candidate needs 58 first preference votes to secure the seat.

According to the numbers, the BJP is poised to win two seats with 48 replacement MLAs. The party will need another 10 votes to secure a third mandate.

While the Congress appears to be safely securing one seat in the upper house of parliament, the opposition party faces fears of cross-voting and discontent with Ms Natarajan, which has already begun to come to the fore.

Out of 64, Congress MLA from Vijaypur Mukesh Malhotra was barred from casting his vote for the Rajya Sabha polls. Mr. Malhotra was convicted by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in an election affidavit case for non-disclosure of criminal cases. Although the Supreme Court postponed the decision on his disqualification, it prohibited him from participating in the RS vote.

Another Congress MLA, Nirmala Sapre from Bina, has unofficially joined the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and is currently facing disqualification proceedings in the Supreme Court.

The opposition party thus has 62 legal votes left in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, for which voting will be held on June 18.

Soon after the name of Ms. Natarajan was announced to represent Mandsaur in the Lok Sabha, a meeting of its legislature party was called on June 6.

However, voices of dissent against Ms Natarajan’s name were also raised with leaders claiming that she “did not have an active connection with MLAs and local leaders”.

Naresh Gyanchandani, a leader from Bhopal, hit out at X and said the party had “made a mistake” in selecting candidates.

“Dear Rahul Gandhi ji and Priyanka Gandhi ji, I urge you that there has been a major oversight in the Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh. I have messaged you several times to take a deliberate decision for Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh as there is a risk of cross-voting,” wrote Digvijay Singh, would be safe.

In another post, he said that with the 2028 parliamentary polls in mind, the party should choose a candidate who has “a firm grip on the country and can win the parliamentary elections”. “But you are about to make a big mistake,” he wrote.

However, Mr Singh had earlier said that he was “not seeking” another Rajya Sabha term.

On Friday (June 5, 2026), while BJP leaders did not disclose whether the party plans to field a third-place candidate, some leaders hinted that crossover voting was possible.

State BJP media in-charge Ashish Agarwal took a dig at the opposition party, saying “Cross-voting is no longer just a problem; clear signs of it are starting to emerge”.

“Internal opposition to the Congress candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections is starting. Even before the Rajya Sabha elections, the discontent inside the Congress has started to surface openly. Now the party’s own leaders and workers are raising questions about the decisions taken by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. When it is not the opponents but their own decisions, Mr. Ashwalgar will start showing signs of defeat,” Ashwalgar said. X, shares Mr. Gyanchandani’s post.

Senior Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya also said, “If the party fields a third candidate, we will make all efforts to ensure the victory of that candidate.”

Meanwhile, Mr Chug arrived in Bhopal on Friday evening and is expected to file his nomination along with Mr Rajneesh Agrawal on Saturday.

But Mr Chug said any decision to field a third candidate would be taken by the party’s national leadership.

A Congress MLA from the Gwalior-Chambal region told The Hindu that fears of cross-voting “were real” and that the state leadership was aware of the situation.

“There is no doubt that Meenakshi Natarajan is a senior leader. She is close to the Gandhi family, but here she seems to have lost touch with the statist leaders as she lost Mandsaur (a Lok Sabha seat) in 2014. And when MLAs feel that they cannot address a senior leader like her directly, they become impatient and the chances of cross-voting increase,” the MLA said.

“Discussions on her name were already going on and the announcement is not surprising. But the state leadership and she now have to get in touch with the MLA as soon as possible,” he said, saying he had no information whether the party planned to move its MLA “somewhere safe”.

Published – June 6, 2026 01:00 IST