WebinarsNew
Explore Business Standard
Rajya Sabha Elections
The Supreme Court on Friday said once nomination of a candidate is rejected by the returning officer, the only remedy is to approach the Election Commission as it heard Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan's plea challenging rejection of her nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls. The court also asked Natarajan to show any judgement passed by the it where it has interfered in such cases. A bench comprising Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Atul S Chandurkar said, "However erroneous the decision may be, once a nomination is rejected, the remedy ordinarily lies elsewhere. Is there any judgment of this Court where we have interfered at that stage? Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Natarajan, submitted that a candidate is supposed to disclose a criminal case which provides for a minimum sentence of two years and, in the present matter, only summons were issued. He said the nomination paper for the Rajya Sabha poll in Madhya Pradesh was wrongly rejected by the returni
Top Congress leaders met the Election Commission on Wednesday, alleging that the nomination papers of Meenakshi Natarajan, its Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh, were wrongly rejected. A delegation of top party leaders, including K C Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, Deepa Dasmunshi, Vivek Tankha and Abhishek Singhvi, along with Meenakshi Natarajan, met the commission and demanded that the decision should be reversed. They contended that no case is pending against Natarajan as no court has yet taken cognisance of a private complaint filed against her. Singhvi, who also heads the legal cell of the Congress, said on X that " the decision of the Returning Officer is indeed poor and absolutely partisan." Singhvi said he spoke to Natarajan and several other senior Congress leaders on Tuesday after he learnt of this "most remarkable and astonishing rejection" of her nomination papers by the Returning Officer. "This is, on the face of it, patently and blatantly illegal
The upcoming elections to three Rajya Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh took a dramatic turn on Tuesday with the nomination of Congress candidate Meenakshi Natarajan being rejected on charges of concealing information about a case in the affidavit. "Natarajan's nomination has been rejected by the Returning Officer on the grounds of hiding information about a case," an MP Assembly official told PTI. A complaint was submitted by BJP candidate Mahesh Kewat, contesting the third Rajya Sabha seat, to the Returning Officer alleging that Natarajan deliberately hid information about a case filed against her in Telangana. Sanket Gupta, the lawyer representing Kewat, told reporters that a criminal case is pending against Natarajan in a Telangana court and is not mentioned in the affidavit. He said the Returning Officer has rejected her nomination on this basis. "This information has been deliberately concealed. According to Supreme Court guidelines, you are required to provide this information
The Election Commission on Friday announced polls for 24 Rajya Sabha seats on June 18. In a statement, the EC said the elections for the Rajya Sabha seats will be held in 10 states where the incumbents are retiring on different dates beginning June 21 to July 19. The Rajya Sabha elections will be held in four seats each in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, three seats each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two seats in Jharkhand and one seat each in Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. The last date for filing nominations is June 8.
Haryana Congress' Disciplinary Action Committee (DAC) will prepare a report and convey its decision to the party high command concerning the issue of alleged cross-voting by five party MLAs during last month's Rajya Sabha elections. The committee, under the chairmanship of party leader Dharampal Malik, met at the Haryana Congress office here on Friday evening. The five MLAs are accused for cross-voting in favour of BJP-backed Independent candidate Satish Nandal and have been issued a show-cause notice by the Congress. The notice was served for "anti-party activities by deliberately not casting a vote in favour of Congress' official candidate". Polling for the two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana was held on March 16. BJP's Sanjay Bhatia bagged one seat comfortably, while the Congress candidate, Karamvir Singh Boudh, secured the second seat in a close contest against Independent candidate Satish Nandal. The alleged cross-voting had dented the otherwise comfortable position of the Congre
The Congress has issued show-cause notices to four of its Haryana MLAs who allegedly cross-voted during the recent Rajya Sabha elections. The action comes after the party on Wednesday named four out of the five legislators it suspected of defying the official line. The name of the fifth MLA has not been disclosed yet. Of this, two MLAs on Thursday denied that they had cross-voted and said that their names are being dragged into the episode unnecessarily. The party has directed the four legislators to reply within a week of receiving the notices and explain why disciplinary action should not be initiated against them. "We have served show-cause notices to the four party MLAs," Dharampal Malik, chairman of the state Congress disciplinary committee, told PTI over phone. The notices state that it has been brought to the attention of the party leadership that the MLAs allegedly cast their vote in a manner contrary to prescribed procedures and official direction issued by the party, ...
BJP's Sanjay Bhatia and Congress party's Karamvir Singh Boudh have been declared elected to two Rajya Sabha seats in keenly watched elections as developments unfolded over allegations of violation of vote secrecy. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, in a late-night press conference, congratulated both the leaders on their win. Calling the elections interesting, Saini slammed the Congress, accusing it of holding its MLAs captive and transferring them to different places, referring to the shifting of Congress legislators from Himachal Pradesh. "I have seen for the first time that Congress did not trust its MLAs", he claimed. The Congress is "finished", and it has "no future", Saini said. The chief minister also lashed out at the INLD for abstaining from voting and said it acted as a "B team" of the Congress. The INLD indirectly supported the Congress, he claimed. Replying to a question on the Independent candidate, Saini said, "How could they stop anyone from contesting th
JD(U) workers on Friday continued to protest the decision of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to enter the Rajya Sabha, a move seen as signalling the end of his more than two-and-a-half-decade-long stint in Bihar politics. At the JD(U) office here, situated right across the street from the BJP's state headquarters, irate party workers staged a demonstration alleging that "traitors" had hatched a "conspiracy" with the alliance partner to "get rid of" their leader, who had been an eyesore for the "powerful liquor lobby" ever since he brought prohibition. "There are some people in our party who are playing the role of Jaichand (12th-century Rajput chieftain who aided Afghan invader Muhammad Ghori). One is in the Union cabinet, and the other has come from the BJP and is lording over us now", an irate JD(U) worker alleged. The allusion was to Union minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, an old aide of Nitish Kumar and a former party president, and Sanjay Kumar Jha, the JD(U)'s working ...
The BJP on Wednesday announced four candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Maharashtra, nominating Union minister Ramdas Athawale and former state minister Vinod Tawde, among others, for the Upper House. Besides Athawale and Tawde, the party has also fielded Maya Chintaman Ivnate and Ramrao Wadkute for the biennial elections. Seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra are set to fall vacant in April. With over 230 MLAs in the 288-member assembly, the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is in a position to ensure the election of all its four nominees. The Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra retiring this year include NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, Athawale, who heads RPI (A), Fauzia Khan of NCP (SP), Rajni Patil (Congress), Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena (UBT), and BJP leaders Dhananjay Patil and Bhagwat Karad. Polling will be held on March 16 between 9 am and 4 pm, with counting scheduled to commence at 5 pm the same day. The Election Commission of India has announced electio
People's Conference chief Sajad Lone on Saturday accused the ruling National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir of "gifting" seven votes to the BJP to ensure the saffron party's victory on one seat in the Rajya Sabha polls held on Friday, calling the elections a fixed match between the two parties. The National Conference (NC) won three seats, while the BJP managed one in the first Rajya Sabha elections held in Jammu and Kashmir after it became a Union territory in 2019. You (NC) have clearly gifted seven members to the BJP. It was a fixed match, Lone claimed at a press conference. The Rajya Sabha elections for four seats were divided into three notifications. In the third notification, elections were held for two seats. While NC's Chowdhry Mohammed Ramzan won the first seat, its candidate Sajjad Kitchloo won the second. For the third notification, the NC fielded two candidates -- G S Oberoi, also known as Shammi Oberoi, and Imran Nabi Dar. The BJP, on the other hand, fielded its Jam
Biennial elections to fill four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir, which have been lying vacant since 2021, will be held on October 24, the Election Commission said on Wednesday. Separately, Rajya Sabha bypoll to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of AAP member from Punjab Sanjeev Arora will also be held on October 24. He had resigned following his election to the Punjab assembly. His Rajya Sabha term was to otherwise end on April 9, 2028. The Rajya Sabha elections for the four Jammu and Kashmir seats are being held nearly a year after the assembly polls were held in the union territory. MLAs elect Rajya Sabha members of their respective states. The union territory has been unrepresented in the Upper House of Parliament since February 15, 2021, the day when Ghulam Nabi Azad and Nazir Ahmed Laway finished their term. Two other members, Fayaz Ahmed Mir and Shamsheer Singh Manhas, had completed their term on February 10, the same year. While announcing the schedule