In just nine days, the BJP on Friday avenged its humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha by-polls on two prestigious seats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by wresting the crucial tenth Rajya Sabha seat from the joint opposition supported BSP candidate Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.
In just nine days, the BJP on Friday avenged its humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha by-polls on two prestigious seats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by wresting the crucial tenth Rajya Sabha seat from the joint opposition supported BSP candidate Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.
Anil Agarwal, who was BJP’s ninth candidate, defeated BSP’s Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar after counting of second preferential votes. Dr Ambedkar got only 32 votes. The BJP and the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath finally succeeded in avenging by-poll defeats by wresting the tenth seat from BSP for supporting the SP in Gorakhpur and Phulpur.
The defeat of the BSP candidate Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar may sour the BSP and the SP bonhomie after 25 years. The BJP victory has come as a big personal win for Yogi Adityanah and BJP strategists who successfully manage to defeat joint opposition supported BSP candidate in the run to Lok Sabha polls.
The BSP Supremo Mayawati will take the defeat of her candidate at the hands of the BJP despite support by SP, Congress and RLD with a pinch of salt and may go tough in dealing with non-BJP parties ahead of Lok Sabha polls.
Besides Anil Agarwal, those who were declared elected from the BJP are Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Dr Anil Jain, GVL Narasimha Rao, Kanta Kardam, Dr Ashok Bajpai, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, Harnath Singh Yadav and Vijaypal Singh Tomar.
The Samajwadi Party candidate Jaya Bachchan was also elected to the Rajya Sabha for the fourth consecutive term. She got 38 votes, which means that independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh Raja Bhaiyya voted for her over and above 37 votes allotted to her by the party. Showing political immaturity, the SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav wasted one crucial vote which could have otherwise gone to the BSP candidate.
Out of 403 votes, a total of 400 votes were polled for the ten Rajya Sabha seats. Jailed BSP and SP leaders Mukhtar Ansari and Hariom Yadav were denied permission by the Allahabad High Court to cast their votes. One seat in UP Assembly is vacant following the death of a BJP MLA in Road accident. One vote each of BJP and BSP was held invalid and the fate of candidates was decided on 398 votes.
As was expected, cross-flooring was the order of the day. Even ruling BJP coalition too faced the humiliation of failing to keep their flock together. Two MLAs of the BJP ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (JBSP) Triveni Ram and Kailash Sonkar voted for the SP and BSP candidates. Both are MLAs from Ghazipur and Chandauli district, the hometown of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Annoyed with BJP style of functioning, the JBSP Chief Omprakash Rajbhar had assured support of all its four MLAs to BJP after meeting the party national President Amit Shah.
The Samajwadi Party MLA Nitin Agarwal, who had recently joined the BJP with his father Naresh Agarwal, voted in favour of the BJP. What added to SP woes was cross-voting by mafia don Vijay Mishra of the Nishad Party, which had allied with the SP to wrest the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat in recently-concluded by-polls from the BJP.
A BSP MLA from Purwa in Unnao Anil Singh also violated the party whip and crossed the floor to vote for the BJP. The BSP and SP were already short of two crucial votes when Mukhtar Ansari and Hariom Yadav.
Earlier, even as polling ended one hour ahead of 4 am deadline, counting was delayed for two hours following SP and BSP lodging complaints with the Election Commission against tearing of four ballot papers by the BJP agents and party rebels Nitin Agarwal and Anil Singh not showing their ballot papers to their polling agents before casting votes.
The opposition parties had demanded their votes to be declared invalid. After seeing the CCTV footage, the Election Commission did not find anything objectionable and allowed counting to begin after 7 pm after rejecting complaints.
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