​Lows of the land: On Meenakshi Natarajan’s Rajya Sabha nomination

The rejection of Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination for the Rajya Sabha election from Madhya Pradesh raises questions of institutional integrity and procedural fairness, going beyond the fate of a single candidate. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the matter on Friday. Meanwhile, all three BJP candidates have been declared elected unopposed, raising further questions on the neutrality and fairness of the process. Ms. Natarajan’s nomination was rejected by the Returning Officer (RO) following objections that she had failed to disclose a pending criminal case in Hyderabad in her election affidavit. As the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Telangana, she was named as one of the respondents in a private complaint filed by a former Telugu Desam Party corporator before the court of the Additional Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad, in 2025. The complaint was not even against Ms. Natarajan; it was against another Congress leader for alleged inappropriate behaviour and criminal intimidation, and she was mentioned in the petition for allegedly not taking appropriate action against the leader. There is no criminal FIR by the Telangana police against Ms. Natarajan. Unlike a conventional police case, a private complaint originates directly before a court. The court had issued notices to the persons named in the complaint, including Ms. Natarajan.