Who is Meenakshi Natarajan? Rahul Gandhi's OG team member at centre of RS nomination row

BJP candidate Mahesh Kewat, who is contesting the third Rajya Sabha seat, had submitted a complaint to the returning officer.

Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan, one of the candidates for the upcoming elections to three Rajya Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, faced a setback as her nomination was rejected by the returning officer on Tuesday.

Meenakshi Natarajan was appointed the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Telangana in-charge in February, 2025. (PTI)

This came after her poll rival, BJP candidate Mahesh Kewat, who is contesting the third Rajya Sabha seat, submitted a complaint to the returning officer claiming Natarajan had deliberately concealed information regarding a case filed against her in Telangana.

The lawyer representing Kewat, Sanket Gupta, said a criminal case was pending against Natarajan and had not been mentioned in her affidavit, on the basis of which her nomination had been cancelled, PTI news agency reported.

Who is Meenakshi Natarajan?

Natarajan is a former Member of Parliament (MP), who represented the Mandsaur constituency in Madhya Pradesh from 2009 to 2014, this being her only term in the House.

Natarajan keeps an extremely low profile, and has been considered to be a close aide of former party president and the present leader of opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, since he formally entered into the Congress in 2004.

Natarajan’s entry into the highest echelons of the Congress is closely tied to Rahul Gandhi’s formal debut in the party in the late 2000s. When Rahul Gandhi was appointed as a General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in late 2007, he had a specific mandate to revamp the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). Natarajan was one of the very first leaders he brought into his inner circle to carry that out.

In 2008, Rahul Gandhi officially inducted Natarajan into the central party structure by selecting her as an AICC secretary to work with him. She was among the group of leaders Rahul had handpicked to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and did not disappoint, winning a seat the Congress had lost to the BJP for six consecutive terms.

However, Natarajan could not recreate the feat in 2014 and subsequently 2019, losing Mandsaur to BJP's Sudhir Gupta both times. However, she came back into the spotlight after she was was appointed the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Telangana in-charge in February, 2025.

Natarajan alleges ‘seat theft’, Venugopal urges EC intervention

After her nomination was cancelled, Natarajan alleged that “it all started” after the BJP fielded a third candidate.

“When the number of members was not adequate, and the BJP fielded third candidate, it all started from there, and we started to understand that they are doing the politics of muzzling the democracy, Constitution,” she said, according to PTI news agency.

Accusing the BJP of “seat theft”, Natarajan claimed that arguments presented by her advocates had not been heard. “What was limited to vote theft, has now become seat theft... When they felt this was a united house and not the divided house, then in guise of legal notice, which was not taken cognisance, they challenged the election petition. Our both the advocated presented the arguments, those were not heard, and the decision came,” she added.

Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal said the party had sought an appointment with the Election Commission. “After 40 minutes, the Election Commission is not allowing us to go. What is happening in this country?” Venugopal questioned. He said that the leaders had submitted a memorandum to the poll body, but said they should have had “physical presence for arguing ” their case. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening, Venugopal urged the ECI to intervene.

“Let us see if they are allowing us tomorrow morning. Otherwise we will go with the legal option,” he added.