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The Times of India
The Times of India
National
Pankaj Shah | TNN

Uttar Pradesh: Now, BJP, SP to battle it out in RS polls arena

LUCKNOW: After a high-decibel bipolar contest in Uttar Pradesh polls, the BJP and SP look set to cross swords for elections to 11 Rajya Sabha seats which will fall vacant in the state July next. Of the 11 retiring MPs, five are be of BJP, three of SP, two of BSP and one of the Congress.

Given the strength of 403 elected members in the UP assembly, each RS candidate will be requiring at least 37 votes. With 273 MLAs, the BJP-led NDA will easily be able to elect seven members, while SP and its allies (RLD +SBSP) -- they have a total strength of 125 MLAs -- will be able to elect three candidates easily. The contest, therefore, will boil down to the 11th seat for which both SP and BJP would seek support of other parties, including Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya's Jansatta Dal Loktantrik and Congress which have two MLAs each and Mayawati's BSP which has just one lawmaker.

UP sends 31 members to Rajya Sabha. Of this, at present, 22 MPs are from BJP, five from SP, three from BSP and one from the Congress.

The five retiring BJP RS MPs include party's lone Muslim parliamentarian Zafar Islam, senior leader from Gorakhpur, Shiv Pratap Shukla, who was tasked with consolidating Brahmins in UP polls; SP turncoats, Sanjay Seth and Surendra Nagar, and Jai Prakash Nishad, who was a minister of state in Mayawati government between 2008 and 2009.

Those completing their term in the SP include former UP legislative council chairman Sukhram Singh Yadav, whose son Mohit recently joined the BJP. Likewise, former Lok Sabha MP and UP cabinet minister Reoti Rama Singh too will be retiring. The third SP MP to complete his tenure is former LS MP from Fatehpur, Vishambhar Prasad Nishad.

While BJP might look up to Raja Bhaiyya’s party for support, SP is expected to bank on Congress. BSP’s positioning, experts said, will have to be watched out for.

The Congress will get completely wiped out of its representation in RS from UP with the retirement of its senior leader Kapil Sibal on July 4. Sibal, a noted lawyer and a Harvard graduate, was elected to RS from UP on July 5, 2016 when Congress had 29 MLAs. With just two MLAs, the Congress is in no position to field a candidate. Before UP, Sibal made it to the RS from Bihar in 1998. He later successfully made it to Lok Sabha in 2004 and 2009 by winning from Chandni Chowk seat in New Delhi.

Likewise, BSP's two senior leaders -- Satish Chandra Mishra and Ashok Siddharth -- will also retire on the same day, leaving the Dalit outfit with just one member -- Ramji Gautam -- in the upper house.

Mishra, party's Brhamin face, has been representing BSP in the Rajya Sabha for three consecutive terms since July 5, 2004. This was the time when Mayawati had put Mishra on the forefront of its much touted social engineering formula to amalgamate Dalits with upper castes -- a move that resulted in BSP getting propelled to power with absolute majority for the first time in 2007 assembly elections.

Mayawati tried this formula this year also, but failed miserably. Ashok (57) happens to be a Jatav and one of the key party cadre from Mayawati's core votebank. A native of Farrukhabad, Siddharth was a practicing refractionist (optometry) until Mayawati picked him as a vital organisational rank.

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