BHOPAL: Just hours after the Supreme Court refused to stay the ongoing electoral process for the June 18 Rajya Sabha elections to three seats from Madhya Pradesh, all three BJP candidates were declared elected unopposed.
With none of the three BJP candidates — who were the only ones left in the poll fray after the scrutiny of nomination forms — withdrawing their nomination papers by the 3 pm deadline on Thursday, they were declared elected unopposed by the Returning Officer.
The ruling party’s elected candidates are national general secretary Tarun Chugh, state secretary Rajneesh Agrawal and former State Fisherman Welfare Board chairman Mahesh Kewat.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court refused to halt the ongoing electoral process for the Rajya Sabha polls from Madhya Pradesh, even as it agreed to hear on Friday a plea by Congress’s Telangana in-charge Meenakshi Natrajan challenging the rejection of her nomination papers by the Returning Officer.
A bench comprising Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Atul S Chandurkar declined to pass any interim order to halt the declaration of the election result, observing that the law laid down by the apex court was clear that courts should ordinarily refrain from intervening once the election process has commenced.