With an aim to ensure victory of Congress nominee Vivek Tankha from Madhya Pradesh in the biennial polls to the Rajya Sabha, lunch and dinner diplomacy besides one-to-one contact with the party legislators is in full swing here.
The polling for the biennial polls will be held tomorrow at Vidhan Sabha.
Senior Congress leaders and former Union Ministers Kamal Nath and Sushil Kumar Shinde are camping in the state capital to ensure the victory of Tankha, who is short of just one vote to sail through in the polls.
"A lunch was on at the posh hotel in the city where Congress MLAs were present. Besides four BSP legislators were taking part in it," a senior Congress leader said.
Soon after the arrival of Nath last evening here, he interacted with all the MLAs one-to-one at the state Congress office and also took part in the dinner at the party headquarters.
Nath will be hosting a dinner in the evening for Congress and other legislators at his official residence here at Shyamla Hills area, the sources said.
"Everything is going on perfectly and as planned. Mock polling will also be conducted so that legislators will not commit any error in exercising their franchise in the crucial elections," State Congress President, Arun Yadav told PTI.
The Congress camp which is short of just one vote is confident of the victory of Tankha as Bahujan Samaj Party has already issued a whip to its four MLAs to vote in favour of him.
The Assembly has a total strength of 230 MLAs. BJP had 166 members followed by Congress 57, BSP 4 and Independents 3.
However, with the death of BJP's Nepanagar MLA Rajendra Dadu yesterday and the Supreme Court's decision barring another saffron party MLA Rajendra Meshram from voting, the party has 164 votes in its kitty now.
