The Congress is mulling to airlift two of its seriously ill MlAs to Bhopal to enable them cast their votes in the June 11 Rajya Sabha polls.
MP Congress Committee (MPCC) chief spokesman KK Mishra while talking to reporters here on Wednesday said, "We have plans to bring our leader in the House Satyadev Katare, undergoing treatment at a hospital in Mumbai, and MlA Govardhan Upadhyay, who is at a hospital in Indore, by air ambulance to the State Assembly to vote."
Mishra further said, "We have learnt that the BJP is trying hard to defeat our candidate and might even indulge in horse-trading." The Congress has 57 MlAs in the House. Each candidate needs 58 votes to sail through in the poll. Congress MlA Ramesh Patel is in jail and the party has moved the High Court to enable him to vote.
BSP supremo Mayawati has already asked her four MlAs to support Congress candidate Vivek Tankha. Earlier, amid speculations that some Congress MlAs might cross floor, the party convened a meeting of its legislators two days back in Bhopal, in which five did not turn up, citing different reasons. The Congress has deputed its senior leader and former Union Minister Kamal Nath, who is going to camp in Bhopal from Thursday to see that Tankha wins the election.
The state BJP is backing its leader Vinod Gotia, who is contesting as Independent candidate and is short by nine ballots to sail through, apart from its two official candidates - senior journalist MJ Akbar and Anil Dave.
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Cong plan to airlift two ailing MlAs for RS voting
The BJP has convened a meeting of its 166 members at Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's official residence on Thursday evening.
Rajendra Meshram, one of BJP's law-makers, has been forbidden to exercise his franchise following a Supreme Court order, a State Assembly official said on Wednesday. Of the total 230 MlAs in the Assembly, Meshram can't cast his vote, he added.