- High Court issued notices to BJP MPs and EC over Rajya Sabha election petition by Meenakshi Natarajan
- Natarajan's nomination was rejected for incomplete affidavit, leading to BJP's uncontested Rajya Sabha win
- The petition challenges Mahesh Kevat's election but includes other BJP MPs due to election validity concerns
Nearly two months after the political and legal controversy that dramatically altered Madhya Pradesh's Rajya Sabha election, the Jabalpur High Court has issued notices to all three BJP Rajya Sabha MPs elected unopposed -- Mahesh Kevat, Tarun Chugh and Rajnish Agrawal -- along with the Election Commission of India and the Returning Officer.
The notices follow an election petition filed by senior Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan, whose nomination was rejected during scrutiny, a decision that eliminated the need for polling and paved the way for the BJP's clean sweep of all three seats. The next hearing is scheduled for September 11.
The petition directly challenges the election of Mahesh Kevat, but the High Court has also sought responses from Tarun Chugh and Rajnish Agrawal because the outcome of the case could have implications for the validity of the entire uncontested election process. At this stage, the Court has merely issued notices and has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case.
The controversy dates back to June, when Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination papers were rejected after BJP objected that she had failed to disclose details of a pending court matter in Telangana in her election affidavit. The Returning Officer accepted the objection, holding that the affidavit was incomplete and cancelled her nomination. The Congress maintained that the rejection was legally unsustainable and alleged that a certain Rajya Sabha seat had effectively been taken away without a contest.
The rejection fundamentally changed the electoral arithmetic. In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, 228 MLAs were eligible to vote, with 58 votes required to elect one Rajya Sabha member. BJP's strength of 164 MLAs comfortably guaranteed two seats but left it around 10 votes short of independently securing the third. Congress, on the other hand, was positioned to win that final seat through Meenakshi Natarajan. Once her nomination was rejected, however, polling became unnecessary and all three BJP nominees were declared elected unopposed.
Congress first approached the Supreme Court seeking immediate intervention before the election process concluded. The top court declined to interfere, observing that challenges arising from rejection of nomination papers ordinarily have to be pursued through an election petition after the election process is over. It left open the statutory remedy available under the Representation of the People Act, following which Meenakshi Natarajan moved the Jabalpur High Court.
The legal battle now centres on a key provision of election law. Under Section 100(1)(c) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, improper rejection of a valid nomination can be a ground for declaring an election void. That does not automatically invalidate the election of the three BJP MPs, but if the High Court ultimately concludes that Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination was wrongly rejected, it could reopen the legality of the uncontested election itself. Whether that leads to setting aside any election will depend entirely on the Court's final judgment.
