All eight candidates from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) submitted their nomination papers for the upcoming Rajya Sabha (RS) of Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections on Tuesday.
However, the buzz around the party that featured a ninth candidate in the last minute turned out to be a wet squib.
The dramatic last minute presentation of the nomination papers by a Varanasi attorney, just 10 minutes before the process came to an end, has created the competition for the 10th RS seat from UP.
The elections are scheduled for November 9 amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic and the results will be declared on the same day.
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Lawyer Prakash Bajaj submitted his nomination papers at 2.50 pm on Tuesday and his candidacy was supported by 10 legislators from the Samajwadi Party (SP).
The measure implies that there will be a contest for the 10th vacant position of RS de UP. Ramji Gautam, the party’s national coordinator and head of Bihar, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), is the other 10th RS candidate.
“Now, unless a candidate withdraws before November 3, the last date for the withdrawal of nominations, or is disqualified, 11 applicants will fight for 10 seats (RS),” said Pradeep Dubey, Senior Secretary of UP Vidhan Sabha .
Each candidate will require around 37 votes for an outright victory.
The BJP and the SP have 304 and 48 members in the UP legislative assembly (MLA), respectively, and can secure the victory of their candidates by their own means.
Gautam will compete against Bajaj, who is fighting as an independent candidate and has the support of at least 10 SP lawmakers.
“Bajaj has exposed the tacit understanding between the BJP and the BSP,” said IP Singh, who belongs to the SP.
Gautam is likely to find things difficult, as the BSP has only 18 lawmakers in the UP’s 403-member assembly. Currently, the assembly strength is 395.
The BJP, which failed to present a ninth candidate despite some surplus votes and was reportedly assured of the support of some opposition lawmakers, had bolstered Gautam’s chances.
However, electoral arithmetic altered dramatically with Bajaj’s entry on Tuesday.
“The move suits the BJP well. You can always market your decision not to run a candidate against the Dalit BSP candidate, while targeting the SP as an anti-Dalit party. The new political formations make it very clear that in the 2022 UP assembly elections, the SP and the BSP will compete with each other unlike in 2017. The BJP will enjoy the prospect as it seeks to reap benefits due to lack of unity. of the opposition. “Said Irshad Ilmi, a veteran journalist.
Some SP and BSP MLA are also in collusion with the BJP, such as Nitin Agarwal and Ramvir Upadhaya, who belong to the SP and BSP, respectively.
Ramvir’s son, Chiragvir, and Nitin Agarwal’s father, Naresh Agarwal, also joined the BJP.
BSP MLA Anil Singh has also rebelled against his party. Another BSP MLA, Mukhtar Ansari, has been languishing in a Punjab jail for the past 22 months on multiple criminal charges.
Congress also has a couple of legislators who have challenged the party line in the past.
Political observers feel that BJP has the upper hand in influence peddling over RS’s 10th seat result from UP.
Apna Dal (Sonelal), which has nine legislators, followed by Congress (7), Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) (4), Independents (3), Rashtriya Lok Dal (1) and the Party Nishad (1) make up the representations of the other parties in the UP assembly.
Earlier on Tuesday, the eight BJP candidates, including three acting RS members of the UP, such as Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, former Ballia Member of Parliament (MP) Neeraj Shekhar, the son of the late Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, and the party’s general secretary, Arun Singh, whose term had expired on November 25, presented their nomination papers in the presence of Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath, MPs CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, among others.
UP Minister Haridwar Dubey, three-time MLA Seema Dwivedi, both Brahmins, and former Director General of Police (DGP) Brij Lal, a Dalit, are the new BJP nominees for the vacant state RS seats.
Two other backward caste candidates (OBC), such as the party’s former Auraiya district head, Geeta Shakya, and BL Verma, have also been nominated for the Upper House of Parliament.
Verma is the Vice President of UP BJP and also the President of UP State Construction and Infrastructure Development Corporation (UPSCIDC) Limited.
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