The political fallout from the rejection of Congress candidate Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination for the Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sabha election has deepened, with competing claims emerging over how the BJP obtained the documents that formed the basis of its challenge.
According to BJP sources, several key documents used to contest Natarajan’s nomination were sourced not from Madhya Pradesh but from Telangana. The sources claimed that even if the party’s argument related to a court notice had failed, it had additional documents that could allegedly have been used to point out discrepancies in Natarajan’s nomination papers.
A senior Madhya Pradesh BJP functionary claimed that the documents were obtained through the party’s Telangana unit. However, the leader declined to identify the person who allegedly provided the papers. In a pointed remark, the functionary said that no one knows a person’s strengths and weaknesses better than their own family.
The claim has fuelled speculation about possible infighting within the Congress. State ministers Kailash Vijayvargiya and Vishvas Sarang have already publicly alleged that the BJP received the information from Congress leaders themselves, though neither named any individual.
BJP sources further claimed that discussions about differences between Meenakshi Natarajan and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy had surfaced on several occasions in the past. According to these sources, when the Congress leadership entrusted Natarajan with leading a padyatra in Telangana ahead of local body elections, a section of the state’s leadership viewed the move with suspicion.
The sources alleged that leaders aligned with Revanth Reddy believed the Congress high command wanted to use Natarajan’s outreach programme to gather grassroots feedback on the functioning of both the organisation and the state government. As a result, reports of political unease between the two leaders periodically surfaced within party circles.
The Congress, however, has strongly rejected all such claims. Congress MLA Dr Vikrant Bhuria accused the BJP of deliberately manufacturing a narrative of internal discord to divert attention from questions being raised over its role in the Rajya Sabha election.
The Congress has alleged that the BJP is spreading such claims to conceal what it describes as attempts to influence the democratic process.
– Ends
