Race for Scindia's Vacant RS Seat in Madhya Pradesh heats Up

Several senior BJP leaders have started lobbying with the Central party leadership to get the ticket for the by-election to the seat which is expected to be declared anytime, a senior party functionary told this newspaper on Thursday, unwilling to be quoted.

The RS seat, vacated by Mr Scindia, will have tenure of two years for the candidate who wins the ensuing by-election to the seat, since the Union minister has completed four years as RS member before being elected to Lok Sabha.

Sources said that the possibility of the Centre opting to send one of the two Union ministers, Ranveet Singh Bittu and George Kurien, to the upper house from Madhya Pradesh cannot be ruled out.

Both of them are not members of the parliament currently and they have to be elected to the parliament within six months.

Sources said that the state leaders are mounting pressure on the Central leadership to give the RS nomination to state leaders only, instead of sending ‘an outsider’ to the upper house from Madhya Pradesh, ‘at least at this juncture’.

A strong section of BJP here argues that the party in the state has given stupendous show in November, 2023 Assembly elections and the just-concluded LS elections in Madhya Pradesh and hence, an organisation man, particularly a second generation leader, should be given RS ticket as a reward for it.

This would boost morale of the BJP cadres in the state, a senior BJP leader said, unwilling to be quoted.

BJP had secured 163 out of 230 seats in the 2023 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh while sweeping the LS polls in the state by winning all the 29 seats.

Other aspirants for the RS ticket are former ministers Narottam Mishra, Aurovind Bhadoria and Jai Bhan Singh Pawaiya.

They had lost Assembly polls earlier.

Former MP from Guna K P Yadav is also a strong contender for the RS ticket from the state.

He had made way for Mr Scindia in the Guna seat in the recently held LS polls.