Rajya Sabha polls: Cross-voting concerns put Congress on edge in MP, Jharkhand

As has now become an unfortunate norm, the Rajya Sabha polls too are expected to witness the BJP encouraging cross-voting by MLAs from its political rivals.

The BJP’s decision late Sunday (June 7) night to field Mahesh Kewat as a candidate in Madhya Pradesh and back “independent” former MP and businessman Parimal Nathwani in Jharkhand points to the inevitability of cross-voting during the polls scheduled for June 18.

BJP banks on cross-voting

In Madhya Pradesh, elections are to be held for three Rajya Sabha seats. With 58 first preference votes of MLAs required for a candidate to win, the BJP, which has 165 MLAs in the 230-member state Assembly, is comfortably poised to win two seats. The saffron party had declared its national general secretary Tarun Chugh and state leader Rajneesh Agarwal as candidates for these two seats last week.

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Hoping to retain the seat vacated by former chief minister Digvijaya Singh upon the completion of his second Rajya Sabha term earlier this month, the Congress party, which has 63 MLAs, had declared former MP Meenakshi Natarajan as its candidate.

Simple arithmetic shows the BJP is short of nine MLAs to win the third seat. The party’s decision to field Mukesh Kewat for the third seat, its lack of numbers notwithstanding, has triggered panic among the Congress’s state leadership, which is now considering moving its MLAs out of the state till polling day.

For the Congress, which had lost its government in the state back in 2020 to a BJP-backed mass defection of MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, a fresh crack in the ranks could be deeply embarrassing given that Natarajan is known in political circles as a close aide of Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.

Congress faces internal dissent

Sources in the Congress say it is, in fact, this aspect of Natarajan’s political identity that is the foundation of the crisis that the party currently stares at. Congress insiders say while Digvijaya Singh had ruled himself out of the Rajya Sabha race, several other senior Congress leaders from the state, including former Chief Minister Kamal Nath and former state Congress chief Arun Yadav, had been lobbying with the high command to pick them as the party nominee.

“The Congress high command’s decision to ignore the claims of these leaders and, instead, give the ticket to Natarajan has left a section of party MLAs, divided as they have always been between factional camps, unhappy. This is what the BJP wants to exploit in the election. The BJP will need just nine extra votes to ensure Kewat’s victory but given the extent of resentment among our MLAs over the party’s decision to field her (Natarajan), don’t be surprised if more Congress MLAs cross-vote,” a senior Congress MLA from the state told The Federal.

MP Congress chief Jitu Patwari and Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Umang Singhar, however, dismissed the possibility of Congress MLAs voting for Kewat. “This is not the first time the BJP is resorting to buying of our MLAs. They toppled Kamal Nath’s government in the same way but this time they will not succeed because all our MLAs have pledged their support for Natarajan,” Patwari told The Federal. Singhar rubbished claims about some Congress MLAs having already been approached by the BJP for their support for Kewat’s candidature.

Alliance tensions complicate contest

The situation in Jharkhand is even more worrying for the Congress not merely because of the risk of cross-voting by its MLAs against party nominee Pranav Jha but as the election has also put the party’s coalition with senior ally, JMM, under strain.

Also read | Why a Rajya Sabha seat is threatening Congress-JMM alliance in Jharkhand

Last week, the JMM had threatened to field a candidate against Jha after asserting that the Congress announced his candidature without consulting Chief Minister Hemant Soren and other constituents of the state’s ruling alliance, which also includes the RJD and the CPI-(ML) Liberation. It was only late Sunday, after the Congress high command rushed former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Haryana Congress vice president Ajay Sharma to Ranchi to meet Soren, that the JMM finally declared its support for Jha.

In Jharkhand, a Rajya Sabha candidate requires 28 first-preference votes to secure victory. With two seats up for election, the ruling coalition of the JMM, Congress, RJD and CPI-MLL has 58 MLAs – enough to win both seats. The BJP and its ally, AJSU, have a combined strength of 24 MLAs, four short of the required quota.

The JMM, which has 34 MLAs, is confident that its candidate, former minister and Dalit leader Baidyanath Ram, will comfortably win the first seat with support of the party’s own legislators. Jha, however, would require not just the support of all 16 Congress MLAs but also that of four MLAs from the RJD, two from the CPI-MLL and the remaining six MLAs of the JMM.

Congress’ Jha faces uphill battle

For Jha, who currently functions as the party’s communications in-charge for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the way the numbers stack up leaves no room for any slip up – accidental or intentional – by MLAs of the state’s ruling coalition.

The challenge before Jha and his party is two-fold. First, the JMM-Congress ties in Jharkhand have been rocky for some months now, say sources in the ruling coalition, claiming that communication between Soren and the Congress MLAs, who have been complaining about “lack of respect within the alliance” and a “deliberate neglect” of their constituencies by the state government, is at an all-time low. Second, the Congress’ own bloc of 16 MLAs remains deeply divided into factions and see Jha, who spends most of his time in Delhi and lacks political or electoral gravitas, as a candidate “parachuted” into the electoral fray after ignoring state leaders, particularly from the tribal and backward caste communities.

Also read | JMM, Congress agree on 1:1 seat-sharing formula for Jharkhand Rajya Sabha polls

With the BJP backing Parimal Nathwani, director of corporate affairs at Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, sources in the JMM-Congress alliance say the prospect of victory for Jha is “bleak”. Nathwani served two terms in the Rajya Sabha as an MP from Jharkhand backed by the BJP and his recently concluded third term in the Upper House as a nominee of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP. A Gujarati businessman, Nathwani is known in political and business circles for his proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

That the BJP, which stalled its spokesperson Gourav Vallabh’s bid to challenge Jha in the Rajya Sabha polls, is betting on Nathwani’s victory is, thus, more than evident. For the Congress the fear is that Jha’s potential defeat could widen the existing mistrust between the party and Soren’s JMM at a time when the Opposition’s INDIA bloc is desperately trying to project renewed cohesion.