SP to Support One BSP Candidate in UP Legislative Council Polls

Lucknow: Taking their new found friendship ahead, Samajwadi Party on Wednesday decided to extend support to the BSP on Legislative Council seat during upcoming polls while fielding its candidate on the other seat.

'The Samajwadi Party will field its candidate on one seat while extending support to the BSP on the other seat for the Legislative Council," SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI.

The election to 13 seats of the Council will be held on April 26 and counting of votes will take place the same day.

To ensure victory, a candidate needs 29 first preference votes and arithmetically, the BJP and its allies are likely to win 11 out of 13 seats comfortably and still be left with five additional votes while the opposition parties can get two seats.

In the 100-member UP Legislative Council, the BJP has just 13 members. The Samajwadi Party has 61 members, the BSP nine, the Congress two, the RLD one and others 12.

Asked whether this decision was taken to compensate for the BSP support in the recent Lok Sabha by-polls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur which the SP wrested from BJP, Chaudhary said "despite all efforts by our party, BSP could not win the Rajya Sabha election because of BJP's gimmicks ..SP wants that one candidate of the BSP reaches the legislative council."

The SP-BSP combine struck gold in the 'saffron' bastion of Gorakhpur --- associated with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Phulpur -- earlier represented by his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya in the bypolls.

The tenures of 13 MLCs, including SP national president Akhilesh Yadav and two ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government -- Mahendra Kumar Singh and Mohsin Raza -- will end on May 5.

Of the 13 seats falling vacant, seven were held by the SP, two each by the BJP and the BSP, and one by the RLD. The thirteenth seat was held by former SP minister Ambika Chaudhary. His seat fell vacant when he switched over from the SP to the BSP.

Though the BJP and its allies have 324 MLAs in the 403-member state Assembly, it may not get the required strength in the Upper House to get the bills passed even after winning 11 of the 13 seats.

During the winter session of the state legislature last year, the Yogi Aditynanath government had failed to ensure the passage of the Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime (UPCOC) Bill in the Upper House.