Lucknow: After losing the parliamentary seats of UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya in the just concluded bypolls to Samajwadi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew names of its two candidates who were to represent the state.
The withdrawal of names put the number of BJP candidates to nine and makes the battle more interesting between the BSP candidate Bhim Rao Ambedkar and BJP’s Anil Agarwal.
On the last day of withdrawal of names, BJP’s state general secretaries, Vidya Sagar Sonkar and Salil Vishnoi took back their candidature on Thursday.
Speaking to media on Thursday while taking back his Rajya Sabha nominaton, a three time ex-MLA from Aryanagar in Kanpur said that he was following orders received from the party leadership.
As per the figures in UP state Assembly, 37 votes are needed for a candidate to reach Rajya Sabha. Given the BJP’s strength in the Assembly, the party can comfortably send eight candidates to Rajya Sabha and then too it will have 28 spare votes for the ninth candidate. In this case, cross voting will be a matter of concern as BJP would need just nine more votes and would be eyeing rebel votes from SP and Congress camp along with independent candidates.
On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party, the BSP, and the Congress can together send two candidates to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.
The BSP has 19 seats, the SP has 47 and the Congress six, and after sending Jaya Bachchan, Samajwadi Party, along with Congress and RLD, will be supporting BSP candidate.
The seriousness of the Rajya Sabha elections can be gauged from the fact that after a historic win in Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav went to meet and thank BSP Supremo Mayawati at her residence, putting aside the past differences and bitterness between the two parties. Sources say, instead of coalition for 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, the centre of discussion was the Rajya Sabha polls and to ensure win for the BSP candidate.
The elections for the 58 Upper House seats are scheduled to take place on 23rd March.
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