Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan's Rajya Sabha nomination rejected

In a big setback for the Congress party ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, its candidate Meenakshi Natarajan's nomination from Madhya Pradesh was rejected during the scrutiny process. The rejection occurred after allegations surfaced that the Congress candidate concealed information regarding a pending criminal case in Hyderabad in the mandatory election affidavit. With this rejection, the Bharatiya Janata Party is positioned to win all three contested Rajya Sabha seats from the state, having already secured the numerical strength for two seats and fielded a third candidate. Meanwhile, the Congress has raised objections over the scrutiny process, highlighting a contrasting situation in Jharkhand. In Jharkhand, an NDA-backed independent candidate allegedly left the criminal charges column vacant and had errors in name sequencing but was granted an extension until the following morning to rectify the nomination form. The Congress party has questioned the differing rules applied by the returning officers in the two states and is reportedly considering legal action over the rejection.