Scindia, Digvijaya frontrunners for Rajya Sabha seats

As election programme for three seats of Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh was released on Tuesday, speculation intensified as to whether the Congress will placate sulking Jyotiraditya Scindia by nominating him from the state. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh is also lobbying hard for re-nomination for the upper house amid demands from a dozen of ministers that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should be chosen for one of the two seats that the Congress is all set to win unopposed, given its strength in the state assembly. The Congress has 114 and the BJP 108 members in the 230-strong state assembly.

According to election programme, notification for the state’s three seats will be released on March 6, polling will be held on March 26 and entire process will be completed by March 30.

The three Rajya Sabha members whose term is ending are Digvijaya Singh (Congress), Prabhat Jha (BJP) and Satyanaryan Jatia (BJP).There are total 11 Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh.

While the BJP has not given any indication about its probable candidate for the scheduled election, political circles are agog with speculation that Scindia and Digvijay Singh are frontrunners from the Congress.

According to party sources, Scindia’s nomination is almost certain because that suits chief minister Kamal Nath fine. Scindia has been off and on needling the chief minister ever since he was denied the coveted post following the Congress’s comeback in the assembly election in November 2018.

Sources close to Kamal Nath say the chief minister would rather prefer Scindia to remain engaged in national politics as a Rajya Sabha member.

Digvijaya Singh’s re-nomination is, however, not that certain. Although he commands considerable following in the state Congress, the former chief minister is no longer considered as close to Sonia or Rahul Gandhi as he once was. It is also in the realm of conjecture to what extent the chief minister will support Digvijaya Singh’s candidature.