An ecstatic Tankha challenged the BJP leadership after the results were out on June 11 by saying “I will show you the power of law”. He had to wage a bitter battle to win as the MP BJP leadership was determined to grab all the three seats though the Party had strength to win in only two seats. The MP assembly has 230 members and for the three seats, each candidate needed 58 first preference votes. The BJP had 49 surplus votes after making sure of two seats. The Party tried to get extra nine votes by enticing other legislators including those of the Congress. This did not succeed and the Congress got one seat after keeping the MLAs united under the party banner.

The decision of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to field independent candidate in Rajya Sabha elections finally proved costly to the party. Congress candidate Vivek Tankha not only defeated BJP state general secretary Vinod Gotia, but the defeat came as a big jolt for the party also. The BJP move united Congress top leaders. Congress leaders who were divided in camps earlier, came under one umbrella to ensure victory of Tankha. The demand to handover leadership of state to Kamal Nath will now further intensify with Tankha’s victory. The victory of Congress filled new energy in its young MLAs. Congress’ national leadership after a long time took Madhya Pradesh politics seriously.

Congress was looking for a long time for a face having a clean image in state politics and it got it in Tankha. The favourable environment built by successful conduct of Simhastha and Bharat Uday Se Gramudaya by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also withered away. Senior Supreme Court lawyer and Congress leader Vivek Tankha accused the BJP of trying to defeat him through unfair means - a charge promptly dismissed by the ruling party. Tankha, who had lost the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Jabalpur as a Congress candidate, became famous after representing whistleblowers in the multilayered Vyapam scam.

'Lawyers work for the society and country, but the BJP tried to defeat both me and another senior advocate Kapil Sibal in the RS polls, as both of us contested against the BJP’s machinations to usurp power in Arunachal and Uttarakhand. Despite not having the requisite numbers to win the election for third seat in MP, they (BJP) tried to create numbers on lines of Arunachal and Uttarakhand, but failed...We’ll now tell them the power of law,” he told media persons here.

While expressing gratitude to the entire Congress leadership, Tankha had a special word of thanks for BSP supremo Mayawati, the support of whose four MLAs saw him cruise to victory. The BSP’s support to the Congress nominee Tankha led to speculation in some quarters of a possible Congress-BSP alliance in the upcoming 2017 UP assembly polls and the 2018 MP assembly polls. Tankha said he wished to work vigorously for the development of the state’s Mahakaushal region.

Like other senior party leaders, including former Union minister Kamal Nath and party general secretary in charge of MP Mohan Prakash, Tankha also dubbed the Saturday poll’s outcome to be the harbinger of which way the 2018 assembly polls would go in the state.

“The bugle for the 2018 polls has been blown today and will gather more momentum in future,” said Kamal Nath, who is being tipped as the future face of Congress in the state and who played decisive role in ensuring Tankha’s victory.

But when specifically asked whether he would be the Congress’s CM candidate in the 2018 polls in MP, Kamal Nath said, “I am not in pursuit of any post. My sole purpose is to reunite the party in the state. The state has been pushed into the throes of darkness; we’ve to bring it back to radiance,” he added.

Congratulating the winners from his party, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the BJP was in favour of clean politics and didn’t believe in horse-trading. Chouhan was addressing party workers after the Rajya Sabha results, at the BJP state office. Of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh for which elections were held, BJP’s Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar secured two seats while the Congress’s Tankha won the third one. BJP workers burst firecrackers to celebrate the victory of two of its leaders.

In an apparent reference to the BSP’s support to the Congress, state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan said though there was no horse-trading from the BJP, there was elephant trading in the rival camp. Union steel minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the party would benefit from Dave and Akbar’s experiences. (IPA Service)