BHOPAL : The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the last day of filing nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections, sprang a surprise by fielding its state general secretary Vinod Gotia as an independent candidate. Accompanied by BJP MLAs, Gotia filed his nomination papers after Anil Dave and MJ Akbar – the two official candidates of the party.
Though Gotia is officially an ‘independent’ candidate but all the ten proposers in the nomination form are BJP MLAs. If Gotia does not withdraw his nomination, voting will become imperative on June 11. If he does, then the two BJP candidates and the Congress nominee Vivek Tankha will be declared elected unopposed.
The talk of the BJP fielding a third candidate – though its strength in the Vidhan Sabha is only enough to ensure clear victory of two – was doing the rounds for quite some days. The BJP high command, on Monday night, decided to field Gotia for the third seat. With Gotia jumping into the fray, things have become difficult for Tankha. The BJP, in order to win this seat, may try to win over Congress MLAs as well as Independents and BSP members. The strategy to contest elections on the third seat was prepared at Delhi after discussion between party organisational leaders.
According to Gotia, contesting the elections was his personal decision. He said all BJP MLAs were in his support. Gotia claimed that he has adequate number of votes and that was why he had entered the fray.
Meanwhile, Congress candidate Vivek Tankha claimed that BJP may resort to horse-trading. He said he has adequate number of votes. Tankha said this move made by the BJP does not augur well for the state politics.
Discussion began on Rakesh Singh, ended at Gotia
The central leadership of BJP was considering fielding Chaudhary Rakesh Singh, who had joined BJP from Congress, on the third seat. A national level office-bearer of the party telephoned Singh but the latter insisted that he should either be the first choice or the second choice of the BJP MLAs. BJP national general secretary Ramlal, on Tuesday morning, had a telephonic conservation with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on the issues. Central leaders of the party wanted that state vice-president Ajay Pratap Singh should be fielded. As Singh was in Sidhi, a new name was considered. The name of former MP Phoolchand Verma was also considered. BJP state president Nandkumar Singh Chouhan even asked Verma to come down to Bhopal but in the meantime, Vinod Gotia’s name was finalised.
