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Congress backs independent for RS seat

BHOPAL: Supreme Court advocate Vivek Tankha, who has the Congress party’s full support, filed two sets of nomination papers on Friday as an independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha election from Madhya Pradesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party candidates would be filing their nomination forms on Saturday.

For the three Rajya Sabha seats to be filled from the State, the BJP has announced the candidature of Maya Singh, whose Rajya Sabha term is nearing completion, national BJP secretary Prabhat Jha and senior State party leader Raghunandan Sharma, who recently quit the Uma Bharti-led Bharatiya Janshakti to return to the parent party.

With a strength of 166 in the Assembly, the electoral arithmetic is becoming a big puzzle for the BJP as they are not certain of mustering the required 58 first preference votes to ensure victory of their third candidates.

The second preference votes would matter only if Mr. Tankha, who is banking on 41 Congress and 20 other MLAs (Independents and others), fails to get 58 first preference votes.

Mr. Tankha, a former Advocate-General of the State, reached the Returning Officer’s chamber in the Assembly building on Friday afternoon to file his papers. He was accompanied by Union Minister and State Congress President Suresh Pachouri, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Jamuna Devi, and several legislators including Ajay Singh, Satyadev Katare, Arif Aqueel, Govind Singh, Harvansh Singh (Congress), State unit president of Samajwadi Party Narain Tripathi, Arjun Palia (SP), Ramlakhan Sharma (CPI-M), Hamid Kazi (Nationalist Congress Party) and Dileep Singh Gurjar (Independent) .

Addressing media persons after filing his papers, Mr. Tankha said he was a successful lawyer and was contesting the Rajya Sabha election as he wanted to work for the larger public good. Mr. Tankha said he would never compromise when it comes to “rule of law”. If the legislators extend their support, he would participate actively in the law-making process, he said. He has sought every party’s support.

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