The Congress took several of its MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, barring a few senior legislators, from Bhopal to Bengaluru on Wednesday ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in the state on June 18, PTI reported.

The Congress is the ruling party in Karnataka and is in the Opposition in Madhya Pradesh.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Umang Singhar told the news agency that the Congress MLAs “will definitely go to the state where our government is in power”. It is “important to keep an eye out because of the way BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] is trying to cause disruptions”, he said.

While 48 Congress MLAs boarded a flight on Tuesday afternoon, another batch of legislators was likely to travel the evening, The Hindu reported.

The 230-member Assembly is going to elect three members to the Rajya Sabha on June 18. With the Assembly’s effective strength at 229, a candidate requires 58 first-preference votes to win.

Of these seats, the BJP has 164 MLAs excluding the speaker. While the Congress has 63 MLAs, its ally Bharat Adivasi Party one.

The BJP has the numbers to win two of the three seats as it needs 116 votes to do so. However, it will be left with 48 votes that are not sufficient to clinch the third seat.

As it stands, the Congress has 63 MLAs, giving it enough votes to win the third seat. This is despite the High Court having barred one MLA from voting. Another MLA’s vote is uncertain because of a separate court petition seeking her disqualification.

The BJP initially fielded its National General Secretary Tarun Chugh and state unit Secretary Rajneesh Agrawal. It later named Mahesh Kewat, the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Fishermen Welfare Board, as its third candidate.

The Congress has only fielded former MP Meenakshi Natarajan.

The BJP nominating the third candidate has led to concerns in the Congress’ state leadership about possible poaching attempts.

The Congress’ state chief Jitu Patwari said that while the BJP speaks about women’s empowerment, it had “fielded a candidate against our women nominee despite lacking eight to ten MLAs”, The Times of India reported.

“They will try to influence MLAs by any means,” Patwari alleged. “This is an attempt to crush democracy.”

Congress MLA Babu Singh Jandel claimed that he had received “an offer of Rs 10 crore” to switch sides, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.