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Hectic political activity in M.P. over Rajya Sabha seats

BHOPAL: There was hectic political activity here on Thursday for elections to the three Rajya Sabha seats to be filled from Madhya Pradesh. Polling will take place on Friday

With a strength of 166 MLAs, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is sure of winning two seats on the basis of the first preference votes. The BJP lacks eight first preference votes for a tally of 58 votes to ensure the victory of its third candidate. Still, banking on the possibility of the second preference votes also being counted in this election, the BJP has fielded three candidates and the State BJP leaders have been working overtime to ensure hundred per cent voting by the party MLAs for their own candidates.

The BJP Legislature Party met at Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s residence here on Thursday afternoon to ensure that there was no rebellion against any party candidate. According to party sources, what is worrying them is an undercurrent of dissent against the candidature of Raghunandan Sharma, who left Uma Bharti’s Bharatiya Janshakti recently to rejoin the BJP. The other BJP candidates in the race are senior State party leader Maya Singh and BJP national secretary Prabhat Jha.

The Congress MLAs were also given training on Thursday to ensure that none of their votes is declared invalid. Along with the PCC chief Suresh Pachouri and State Congress campaign committee chairman Ajay Singh, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh was prominent among those interacting with the MLAs on this count at the Opposition leader Jamuna Devi’s residence on Thursday. The Congress party is backing the former State Advocate-General Vivek Tankha to the hilt. He is contesting as an independent candidate and also has the support of the Samajwadi Party and a few other MLAs.

Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh also arrived here on Thursday afternoon from Jabalpur to canvass support for Mr. Tankha. The Samajwadi Party MLA, Kishore Samrite, who had openly said the other day that he would defy the party whip before he went on to allege that he had been paid Rs.10 lakh by the Congress party to ensure he votes for Mr. Tankha, met the Chief Minister and Mr. Amar Singh here to commit his support for Mr. Tankha.

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Hectic political activity in M.P. over Rajya Sabha seats

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