The decision means BJP’s eight candidates and SP’s two nominees are set to enter the Upper House unopposed. Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav ended days of suspense on Tuesday (October 6) by deciding not to field a third candidate for the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha elections. There are 10 vacant seats that need to be filled.
The SP chief announced the change in his calculations through a post on X. Indian Express reported that some BJP legislators were believed to be in touch with the SP, but there was hesitation among them about openly voting against their party before the assembly election. The SP had spent several days preparing for the possibility of putting up a third nominee. Party General Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav and Reliance Industries Group President Dhananjay Nathwani have been named for the two seats. The final numbers would hae made that contest difficult for the SP. The BJP has a much stronger position. The party also has support from some legislators who have moved away from the SP. The voting process is also conducted through an open ballot. MLAs show their marked ballot to an authorised representative of their party. The system makes cross-voting easier to identify and can have political consequences for legislators who defy their party line. SP leaders also assessed that the open-ballot system made such support difficult to rely upon. Its list included Uttar Pradesh Minister Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, Gopi Krishna Pandey and Shruti Gangwar. The party left out Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma from the new list.
The third candidate would have forced an election for 11 candidates competing for 10 seats. Uttar Pradesh currently has 396 sitting MLAs in the 403-member Assembly. Each Rajya Sabha candidate needs 37 first-preference votes. The SP has 101 MLAs on paper. With support from two Congress MLAs, its strength could reach 102. That left the party nine votes short of the 111 needed to secure three seats. The party has 255 MLAs, while its NDA partners account for another 33. The effective NDA strength is assessed at around 294 votes, leaving it two votes short of the 296 required to secure all eight BJP seats. The BJP had eight candidates in the fray after the final day of nominations on October 6.
“Now our eyes are not on three but on 403 seats,” he said, referring to the strength of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly and the 2027 election due in the state.
