No inside conspiracy regarding my rejection of the nomination: Meenakshi Natarajan

AICC in-charge of Telangana Meenakshi Natarajan, AICC secretary Sachin Sawant and TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud at a press conference in Hyderabad on Sunday.

AICC Telangana in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan dismissed rumors of an internal conspiracy in the Congress over the rejection of her nomination in Madhya Pradesh, saying that no party leader had any reason to work against her. The BJP started spreading these rumors a day before the nomination was rejected, she alleged.

Reacting to speculations that the Telangana Congress leader might step down to facilitate her entry into the Rajya Sabha, Ms. Natarajan categorically denied the reports. “Nobody in Telangana is resigning for me. These reports are completely baseless,” she said, adding that her political work would continue in Madhya Pradesh.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad on Sunday, she said the BJP had resorted to unfair political tactics in rejecting her Rajya Sabha nomination and accused the election authorities of compromising the democratic process. Since the matter was before the court, she refrained from commenting extensively on the issue. However, she claimed that the Congress was never disappointed by the rejection as the episode “exposed the BJP’s political methods before the nation”.

She said the BJP, despite lacking the numbers to win the third seat, had fielded a candidate as part of a “game plan for mistakes”. “After BJP realized that it could not secure the third seat through legitimate means, it tried to influence the result through pressure and money power,” she alleged.

She said that both the Returning Officers and the Election Commission acted in a compromising manner.

Citing a legal dispute surrounding her nomination, she argued that such cases did not require a Form 26 disclosure and said she clarified the facts when the investigator returned to her. The Congress leader further claimed that the development vindicated the concerns repeatedly raised by Rahul Gandhi regarding the alleged “stealing of votes” and “stealing of seats” in the electoral process over the past two years.

Published – 21 Jun 2026 19:03 IST