Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after announcing two candidates in view of the elections to be held on three Rajya Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh, on Sunday announced the field of candidates for the third seat also. The party has declared state Fishermen Welfare Board Chairman Mahesh Kevat as its candidate against Congress’s Meenakshi Natarajan on this third seat. With this announcement, there will be competition between the two parties to win the third seat. The party has declared Dr. M. Nagaraj as its candidate from Karnataka.
Along with the Rajya Sabha elections, BJP has also announced the names of its candidates for the Karnataka MLC elections 2026. The party has made Lingaraj Patil and Raghu Kautilya its candidates for the Legislative Council elections. Both the leaders have been entrusted with important responsibilities because of their active role in the organization for a long time.
The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Bharatiya Janata Party announces the names of candidates for the biennial Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and the biennial Legislative Council election in Karnataka 2026. pic.twitter.com/FxtqKWprnh
— ANI (@ANI) June 7, 2026
BJP leaders held a meeting at the Chief Minister’s residence
In fact, before the announcement of the name of BJP’s third candidate, party leaders held a meeting at the Chief Minister’s residence in Bhopal and reviewed the situation. Party sources said that in the same meeting it was agreed to field Mahesh Kevat as the third candidate, after which the central leadership gave the green signal to it.
Mahesh Kevat’s name announced
BJP’s Central Election Committee announced the name of Mahesh Kevat as the third candidate on Sunday night. Earlier on Saturday, BJP candidates Tarun Chugh and Rajneesh Aggarwal had filed nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections. Rajya Sabha candidate Meenakshi Natarajan from Congress will file her nomination today. A meeting of the Congress Legislature Party was held in Bhopal on Saturday, after which the Congress leaders claimed unity and boasted about the victory of Meenakshi Natarajan.
164 MLAs of BJP and 64 MLAs of Congress
At present the number of effective votes in the total 230 member assembly of Madhya Pradesh is 228. In this, BJP has 164 MLAs and Congress has 64 MLAs. Due to lack of clarity regarding the voting situation of Bina MLA Nirmala Sapre and her inclination towards BJP and technical reasons like ban on voting of Vijaypur MLA Mukesh Malhotra, the effective figure of Congress has reduced to 62.
BJP needs 116 votes
Each candidate needs 58 votes to win on three Rajya Sabha seats. According to this, BJP needs 116 votes to win two seats. After casting 116 votes out of total 164, BJP will be left with 48 votes. To win the third seat, it needs 58 votes i.e. BJP needs 10 additional votes. Congress has the necessary numbers to win, but the announcement of the third candidate by BJP has increased its worries and made the path of victory difficult for Natarajan. Voting will be held for three Rajya Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh on June 18.
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