NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary Tarun Chugh was elected unopposed in the biennial Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday.Along with him, Rajneesh Agrawal and Mahesh Kewat were also declared elected unopposed to the Upper House by the Returning Officer.The three candidates displayed their certificates of election after receiving them from the returning officer at the state Assembly premises.In a post on X, Chugh expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership for giving him the opportunity to serve in the Rajya Sabha.”Heartfelt gratitude to Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji and the party leadership for reposing their faith and confidence in me by entrusting me with the opportunity to serve in the Rajya Sabha,” Chugh said. “This is a matter of immense honour and responsibility for me. I reaffirm my commitment to work with utmost dedication and sincerity towards realizing the vision of a Viksit Bharat under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji,” he added.Voting for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh was scheduled for June 18. These seats were to fall vacant with the expiry of the terms of BJP’s George Kurien and Sumer Singh Solanki, and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, on June 21. The BJP has 164 MLAs in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly, while the Congress has 62 MLAs eligible to vote. With each Rajya Sabha candidate requiring 58 votes to win, the BJP was assured of winning two seats comfortably, while the Congress had enough votes to win a single seat.However, ahead of the election, Congress candidate Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination was rejected on charges of concealing information about a case in her affidavit.
