Jaipur : With Rajya Sabha elections round the corner, stage is set for full-blown political war between ruling Congress and opposition BJP in Rajasthan. Following fears of defection expressed by Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the party shifted all its MLAs to a resort in Jaipur. Incidentally, MLAs from Gujarat are already holed up in Rajasthan resort after Congress suspected likely cross-over to BJP.
According to Gehlot, BJP is offering Rs 25 crore for Congress legislators to change sides. It is barely months that senior Congressmen, MLAs Jyotir Aditya and Scinda, were lured to BJP in Madhya Pradesh overturning Congress rule there. The saffron party is experimenting the same formula hoping for success in Rajasthan. Incidentally, NDA currently has only 91 MLAs in Rajasthan’s 245-seat Assembly.
BJP is aiming to grab 6 seats in the upcoming elections to Rajya Sabha. Hence the attempts to beguile Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. At the time of declaring Rajya Sabha elections, BJP’s Assembly strength allowed it to nominate only 2 members from Gujarat and 1 each from Madhya Pradesh. The ongoing horse-trading operation with backing from central leadership is designed to spike those numbers to 3 in Gujarat and 2 each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It has met its goal for Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh so far.
In Rajasthan, Congress enjoys 107 seat majority and has KC Venugopal and Neeraj Dikki as its Rajya Sabha nominees, while BJP tallies to 72 and has 21 seats additionally via independents and other MLAs. Any candidate who wins 51 votes will earn a Upper House seat. BJP is fielding two candidates from the state taking advantage of divisions within Congress, party state secretary Sathish Purnia said.
Post March elections, BJP seats in Rajya Sabha shrunk to 75 from a previous 81. It now seeks to raise its tally to 84. NDA has an additional strength of 16 including 5 JDU seats and 3 from SAD. UPA enjoys strength of 61 seats while 68 pertain to parties with no alliance to either UPA or NDA.
The elections that will take place on 19th were originally scheduled to be held on 26 March. 55 seats lie vacant in Rajya Sabha of which, 37 got taken without opposition. The elections being held in the June - July will see race for 6 of the total 18 seats left vacant. .
