Voting for the by-election to two seats of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council from the state assembly constituency will be held on Monday.
Samajwadi Party, by fielding two candidates in the bypoll, has forced polling. Usually the ruling party candidates are elected unopposed and opposition never fields its candidate.
The Bharatiya Janata Party candidates in the bypolls are Padmasen Chaudhary and Kunwar Manvendra Singh. The BJP candidates are comfortably placed in the contest and are likely to easily sail through.
The strength of the UP assembly is 403 MLAs. The BJP has 255 MLAs. BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) has seven MLAs and NISHAD Party has six members. Opposition SP has 109 MLAs and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal has six MLAs. The other MLAs are two of Congress, one of Bahujan Samaj Party, one of Jansatta Dal and six of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party. Two MLAs, Irfan Solanki of SP and Abbas Ansari of SBSP, are in jail.
The SP, for underlining its caste based identity, has fielded two candidates, one from Other Backward Classes and one from Scheduled Caste community.
The Election Commission of India had announced the bypoll on May 4. The by-election was caused by the resignation of sitting BJP MLC Lakshman Acharya, who has been appointed as the Governor of Sikkim, and the death of another sitting member Banwarilal Dohra.
In a bid to corner the OBC leaders of the BJP, the SP candidates have written letters to these leaders seeking their support for their candidature. The SP candidates have written a letter to Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, his ministerial colleagues and BJP leaders urging them to listen to their conscience and support them.
The letter signed by both the SP candidates –Ram Jatan Rajbhar and Ramkaran Nirmal – says their party works for the uplift of backward and Dalits communities and promotes them, therefore all the members of the legislative assembly should support them in the council by-elections.
Among those to whom the letter has been sent include state cabinet minister Ashish Patel, a leader of BJP’s ally Apna Dal (Sonelal); ministers Swatantra Dev Singh, Anil Rajbhar, Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary and Dinesh Khatik. They have also written a letter to Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party leader Om Prakash Rajbhar, appealing for cooperation in the by-elections.
Meanwhile, the BJP, for keeping its flock of MLAs together, held their meeting on Saturday. A mock drill for training the MLAs in casting votes was also held on Sunday. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna conducted the training for the MLAs. Six MLAs of NISHAD Party, an ally of the BJP, will vote for the ruling party candidates.
The SP has also marshaled its MLAs and allies to be present in Lucknow and to vote for its two candidates.
Rashtriya Lok Dal president Jayant Chaudhary, an ally of the SP, was in Lucknow on Sunday. He said that the RLD would support the SP candidates.
