Madhya Pradesh Congress President Jitu Patwari, party General Secretary and state in-charge Harish Chaudhary, state Assembly LoP Umang Singhar and others present as party candidate Meenakshi Natarajan files her nomination papers for Rajya Sabha elections, at state Assembly, in Bhopal, Monday, June 8, 2026. | Photo Credit: PTI

Congress on Tuesday slammed the BJP after nomination papers of Meenakshi Natarajan, the party’s candidate for Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, were rejected, with a Congress delegation also going to meet the Election Commission over the issue.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that rejecting Meenakshi Natarajan’s “nomination to the Rajya Sabha is a blatant attempt by the BJP to destroy the democratic process in a clandestine manner”.”The allegation of any error or non-disclosure in her nomination is complete humbug and a desperate attempt to snatch a seat from the INC. They stooped so low as to reject her nomination when they realised that their dirty tricks to compromise our INC MLAs is going to fail,” he said in a post on X. “This shows the BJP’s hollow commitment to the Constitution and democracy. At every step of the way, they are hell-bent on Vote Chori - one way or another. We will not take this daylight robbery of democracy lying down, and will fight this legally as well as politically on the streets tooth-and-nail,” he added.

Congress delegation meets Election Commission, raises objections

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who was among the party leaders who reached the Election Commission, said that they wanted to submit a petition to the Election Commission. He accused the poll body of “deliberating stopping” the party delegation and said he had never seen something like this. “We have come here to submit a petition. Our candidate has been disqualified. We just want to submit our petition to the Election Commission...Why can’t I sit in the waiting room? I have been a Member of Parliament for over 35 years. I have been waiting here for over 10 minutes. You are deliberately stopping us. I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

The polling for Rajya Sabha biennial elections is slated to take place on June 18.

Published on June 9, 2026