Businessman and former Union minister Kamal Morarka’s entry in the fray has made Rajya Sabha elections from Rajasthan interesting. Mr Morarka, who filed his nomination at the 11th hour, is contesting as third front candidate with support from the Congress and some smaller parties, including the BSP and Independents.
He arrived in Jaipur and had a meeting with the leader of the Opposition Rameshwar Dudi at the latter’s residence. Later, he reached the state Assembly to file nomination along with Kirori Lal Meena of the National People’s Party and some Independents.
Mr Dudi has said that the Congress will take a decision on support to Mr Morarka after the Legislative Party meeting on Wednesday but some Congress MLAs have signed as proposer for Mr Morarka.
This has made the BJP jittery, which was very confident to win all four seats until morning.
Minister for social justice and empowerment Arun Chaturvedi appealed to the MLAs not to be trapped by the Opposition’s conspiracy.
He said that the BJP has 164 votes — enough to ensure victory of all four party candidates while accusing the Congress of encouraging horse-trading.
The BJP needs 164 votes to win all four seats. It has 160 MLAs and support of four Independents who also became proposer for its candidates. Ideally, the BJP candidates should easily sail through with required first preference votes of 41 and Mr Morarka even if he gets support of all remaining Opposition MLAs would be left with 36.
But, the problem is that the BJP would not like to risk victory of stalwarts like Union minister Venkaiah Naidu and vice-president Om Prakash Mathur.
