Cong to challenge Natarajan's RS nomination rejection in SC
New Delhi/bhopal, June 11 -- The Election Commission was yet to decide on the Congress' demand to revoke the rejection of Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination for Rajya Sabha polls from Madhya Pradesh even as the state unit of the party was preparing to move the Supreme Court on Thursday against the order by the Returning Officer (RO).
Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh assembly Umang Singhar said, "The Congress will move the Supreme Court against this injustice. If required, we will meet the President of India to raise the matter of constitutional crises created by the BJP."
A delegation of top party leaders, including K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Abhishek Singhvi, Vivek Tankha, Randeep Surjewala, Bhupesh Baghel and Deepa Dasmunshi, along with Natarajan, met the Commission and demanded that the decision should be reversed.
After meeting EC officials Singhvi termed the RO's order "poor and absolutely partisan" as party MLAs in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday staged a hunger strike against the rejection of Natarajan's nomination, calling it a coordinated conspiracy under pressure from the BJP government. "The decision of the Returning Officer is indeed poor and absolutely partisan," Singhvi posted on X, sharing a video laying out his legal objections to the order.
Speaking to reporters, Natarajan said, "This is a subversion of democracy....We still have full faith in constitutional institutions. That is why we are fighting this battle."
After the Congress delegation left, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the two Election Commissioners (EC) sat through an extended internal meeting to decide whether to intervene - but by nightfall no decision had been taken, leaving the June 9 rejection in force and the BJP's three nominees, Tarun Chugh, Rajneesh Agrawal and Mahesh Kewat, set to be declared elected unopposed to the state's three seats.
Senior ECI officials present in the deliberations said the Commission worked through the matter end to end - the governing provisions of the election law, the line of Supreme Court rulings on disclosure, and the precedents thrown up by earlier Rajya Sabha and other electoral contests.
Natrajan's nomination was rejected on Tuesday....
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