Madhya Pradesh set to witness keen Cong-BJP fight in Rajya Sabha polls

A keen battle for Rajya Sabha polls is on the cards in Madhya Pradesh, where the Kamal Nath government faces a grim future following rebellion by at least 22 MLAs, as both the BJP and the Congress have announced two candidates each for the state's three seats.

The two parties are comfortably placed to ensure the win of one of their candidates, and while the Congress appeared to have an edge for the third seat but the decision of its 22 MLAs to resign from the state assembly has upended the numbers game.

Most of these MLAs are supporters of Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the BJP on Wednesday after quitting the Congress a day before.

The official tally of the Congress in the 228-member assembly is 114 and the party also enjoyed the support of four Independents, two BSP and one SP MLA.

If the resignations of the 22 MLAs, who are camping in Bengaluru, are accepted or they abstain from voting in the Rajya Sabha polls, then the actual strength of the assembly will fall to 206. The Congress, on its own, will then have 92 members and the BJP 107 seats.

Scindia and Digvijay Singh of the Congress are expected to comfortably win in the polls as they are likely to be the choice of their parties for the seat they are certain to win.

The BJP's Sumer Singh Solanki and Phool Singh Baraiya of the Congress are likely to slug it out for the third seat.

Solanki, whose candidature was announced on Thursday, has had a long association with the RSS and been working in the state's tribal region on several projects of the Hindutva organisation.

The polling for 55 Rajya Sabha seats spread over 17 states, including in Madhya Pradesh, will be held on March 26.