More Stories

Informist, Tuesday, Jun. 9, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The nomination of Meenakshi Natarajan as Rajya Sabha candidate of the Indian National Congress from Madhya Pradesh was rejected Tuesday by the returning officer for allegedly concealing information about a case. The Congress is likely to approach the Election Commission of India against the rejection.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party had filed an objection on Natarajan's nomination papers, claiming that she had failed to disclose in her affidavit a case pending against her in a Telangana court. Subsequently, her nomination was cancelled.

 

However, Congress leader and Supreme Court lawyer Vivek Tankha dismissed the BJP's claim about Natarajan's nomination papers as "misleading". "No criminal case is registered against her," Tankha wrote on X. "It was merely a notice served on her along with other people asking why they should not be sued for an INR 100 million compensation. Her lawyer has replied to that notice. No FIR has been lodged."

 

The Congress had smelt a rat when the BJP fielded a third candidate, Mahesh Kewat, at the eleventh hour, even though the ruling party only has numbers to win two of the three seats in the state. With the state assembly's effective strength at 229, a candidate requires 58 first-preference votes to secure election to the Upper House of Parliament. The BJP has 164 members in the assembly.

 

The Congress had expected to win the third seat. It even flew its legislators out of the state Tuesday to avoid the possibility of the BJP luring some of them to support its candidate.

 

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Kamal Nath said the BJP was breaking all limits of decency in politics to snatch the Rajya Sabha seat from his party. "They maliciously filed objection to Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination, and then their MLAs created a ruckus in the Assembly premises," Nath wrote on X.

 

He claimed that before this, the administration had delayed permission for the flight carrying Congress legislators.

 

State Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said the reasons given by the returning officer for rejection of the nomination are "self-explanatory", and claimed that the information about the case "must have come from Congress people only".  End

 

Reported by Asim Khan

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.