In a shocker for the Samajwadi Party (SP), as many as eight MLAs skipped a meeting called by party chief Ahikesh Yadav on the eve of Rajya Sabha elections, sparking rumours of the leaders supporting BJP in the polls scheduled for Tuesday.
In UP’s Rajya Sabha elections — a high-pitched electoral battle ahead of Lok Sabha polls — BJP has fielded eight candidates while opposition SP has put up three candidates for the 10 seats.
Party insiders said several attempts were made to contact the MLAs but there was no response from their side. Rakesh Pandey, son of Ritesh Pandey who recently switched to BJP from Bahujan Samaj Party; Abhay Singh; Rakesh Pratap Singh; Manoj Pandey; Vinod Chaturvedi; Maharaj Prajapati; and Pooja Pal were among the MLAs who skipped the meeting.
“Initially, they responded that they would join the meeting in between but they never turned up,” an insider said.
UP’s political analysts called it a ‘pre-planned khel’ and said it was highly likely that the absentees may extend their support to BJP on Tuesday. “It’s a game plan and it was all pre-planned. It can’t be a coincidence that all of them skip the meeting together. Chances are high that the absent MLAs are in touch with BJP and they may vote in favour of BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls,” said Sashikant Pandey, a political analysts and head of the political science department at Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow.
He added that the development is the second shocker for the SP after Swami Prasad Maurya, who was the national general secretary, quit the party.
Earlier on Monday, Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) chief Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiya announced his support for the BJP. Raja Bhaiya also attended a dinner hosted by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after the latter held a meeting of BJP MLAs in Lucknow.
The ruling BJP and principal opposition SP have the numbers to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but with the BJP fielding Sanjay Seth as its eighth candidate, a keen contest is on the cards in one of the seats. The BJP hopes that cross-voting from the Samajwadi Party camp will help Seth sail through.
Seth, a local industrialist and former SP leader, joined the BJP in 2019. He filed his nomination in the presence of deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and other senior party leaders. The seven other candidates fielded by the BJP are former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind), party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh and former Agra mayor Naveen Jain. Meanwhile, SP has fielded actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman.
Voting for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on Tuesday and the results will also be announced the same day. With four seats currently vacant, there are 399 MLAs in total available for voting. To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needs nearly 37 first-preference votes.
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
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