Akhilesh's goodwill gesture for Mayawati.
To win over the trust of BSP Supremo Mayawati after Rajya Sabha debacle, the Samajwadi Party has offered a seat in UP Legislative Council to BSP candidate Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, who was defeated by BJP in upper house polls.
Elections to the 13 UP Legislative Council seats, if required, will be held on April 26 and the results would be announced on the same date. As per schedule announced by the Election Commission, nominations will begin from April 9 and close on April 16. Scrutiny of papers would be done on April 17 and April 19 is the last date for withdrawal of candidatures.
With its strength of 324 in UP Assembly, the BJP coalition is all set to win 11 out of 13 seats. About 29 votes are required for a candidate to win a Upper House berth. Similarly, Samajwadi Party will have 17 extra votes after it ensures victory of one of its candidate with 47 votes (minus one of Hariom Yadav who is in jail).
As a goodwill gesture, it has offered the remaining one seat to the BSP which can easily win it with the SP support and its own 18 votes (minus one of Mukhtar Ansari who is in jail). The SP wants Mayawati to field Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar again. He had missed the Rajya Sabha bus when the SP failed to muster required number of votes to ensure his win.
The BSP will not even require support from the Congress or RLD to win the seat for Dr Ambedkar this time. Chances of BJP, with only 5 extra votes, repeating Rajya Sabha game by fielding an extra candidate is bleak.
“We have offered one seat to the BSP as a goodwill gesture to strengthen our alliance further before 2019 Lok Sabha polls. We have learnt lessons from Rajya Sabha polls and this time we will ensure victory of the BSP candidate first,” said Sunil Sajan, Samajwadi Party MLC and Spokesperson.
Now the ball is in Mayawati’s court to accept the Samajwadi Party offer. The BSP Supremo has not yet opened her cards on the SP offer. Mayawati is busy chalking out strategy to lead the BSP-SP alliance than to play second fiddle to Akhilesh Yadav, who is much junior to her in politics. Party sources confided that ‘Behenji’ may spring a surprise by rejecting the SP offer to keep the alliance partners on tenterhooks for having bigger pie from Lok Sabha seat-sharing cake.
She has already given a jolt to the SP by announcing that BSP will not support candidates of the alliance partner during Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly by-polls. The plan is to keep an upper hand in alliance by letting the SP test waters in ensuing by-polls by going alone.
Unlike Rajya Sabha polls, elections to all 13 Legislative Council seats are more likely to be unopposed since there is no room for the BJP to play any game in order to win one extra seat. The Former Chief Minister and SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav is among 12 candidates who are retiring on May 5. One seat of Ambika Chowdhary, who has switched over to the BSP from SP, is also vacant.
Two BJP Ministers in the Yogi adityanath Cabinet -- Mohsin Raza and Mahendra Kumar Singh -- are also retiring on May 5. The BJP has an opportunity to address grievances of party cadre by sending their leaders to the Upper House.
Akhilesh Yadav has already announced to contest Lok Sabha polls from Kannauj, parliamentary seat from where he had started his political career in 2000. It would be interesting to watch who he nominates to Legislative Council on his seat falling vacant on May 5.
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