Angry MP Cong workers lock up Meenakshi Natarajan in a room

To add to the ongoing drama in the Congress camp in Madhya Pradesh, on the same day that an aspirant for a Congress ticket committed suicide in the state, Congress Parliamentarian Meenakshi Natarajan was locked up in a room inside the party headquarters at Neemuch, near Indore.   [caption id=“attachment_121818” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Congress Member of Parliament Meenakshi Natarajan[/caption] A report in the Times of India said Natarajan, an MP fron Mandsaur who is known to be part of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s core team, was locked in a room on Thursday afternoon by party workers who were angry at the denial of a ticket to Rajkumar Ahir from the Jawad Assembly constituency. Jawad is in Neemuch district. The incident occurred after an hour-long drama in the Gandhi Bhavan headquarters in Neemuch, where Ahir’s supporters accused Natarajan and campaign committee chief Jyotiraditya Scindia of deliberately denying him a ticket to favour Raghuraj Chordia, considered an outsider to the constituency. Ahir was quoted as having said, “I have been visiting the constituency since 2008 and working for the people of Jawad for the last four years.” He reportedly issued a 24-hour deadline to be given a ticket, or he would contest independently as a rebel. As tempers flared, Natarajan was gheraoed and eventually managed to make it to a room with angry party workers bolting the door from outside. Chordia had reoprtedly lost from Neemuch by about 20,000 votes in the 2008 elections. Natarajan reportedly told Times of India that she was not mobbed. “Of course supporters of Ahir were agitated over ticket distribution, but I was not locked in a room or mobbed by dissidents,” she is quoted as having said.