The state will elect three members to the Upper House on Friday. But the battle is being fought only for one seat, as the ruling BJP is comfortably placed to ensure the victory of two of its three candidates. Despite having 166 MLAs, the party finds itself short by five votes to win the third seat. The Congress, meanwhile, does not have the strength to field its own candidate and had decided to throw its weight behind an Independent candidate.

The lack of numbers has suddenly made the BJP and the Congress chase the other political parties, who are either acting pricey or holding their cards close to their chest. Given its numbers in the Assembly, the ruling party has rarely hobnobbed with the smaller parties till recent losses in bypolls made it impossible for it to win a third seat on its own. Now it is left wooing the minnows.

The Congress is doing its best to outsmart the BJP. But in doing so, the party finds itself consumed by the political maelstrom brought on by Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite who alleged that he was offered a bribe of Rs 25 lakh to vote in favour of the Congress-supported candidate Vivek Tankha, a Supreme Court lawyer and a former advocate general of Madhya Pradesh. Samrite’s allegation has spiralled out of control, leading to a war of words and a slew of complaints from police stations to the Election Commission of India.

The maverick legislator has since been suspended by his party. But that has not silenced him. On the contrary, the Lanji MLA continues to embarrass the Congress even as the investigating agencies try to establish the veracity of his allegations.

Congress MLA Premchand Guddu on his part has accused the ruling BJP of trying to prevent him from voting, as the Economic Offences Wing of the state police has asked him to remain present at its Indore office on voting day. The Indore MLA has also lodged a complaint with the Election Commission.

Meanwhile, Uma Bharati has asked her four Bharatiya Janashakti Party MLAs to vote in

favour of BJP candidate Raghunandan Sharma. Sharma was state unit president of her party till he decided to return to the BJP.

The election has further cemented the rift within the Samajwadi Party and the Gondwana Gantantra Party. Though whips have been issued, rebels in these parties are contesting the very authority to issue the whip. The BSP and the Samanta Dal have two MLAs each while the Nationalist Congress Party and the CPI (M) have one member each in the 230-seat Assembly.

Despite all these whips, all parties were in a huddle on the eve of the election, unsure how their members would vote on Friday. Their tension can be gauged from the fact that the parties were training MLAs to vote properly to avoid invalid votes.