Lucknow: The BJP in Uttar Pradesh is now gearing up to ensure the victory of its ninth candidate in the upcoming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha on March 23, in order to make up for the loss of face that it suffered by losing two Lok Sabha seats in a byelection last week.
The BJP is already working overtime to ensure the defeat of the BSP candidate — more than the victory of its own candidate — in the Rajya Sabha polls because it knows that this will drive a wedge in the newly forged SP-BSP alliance.
BSP president Mayawati will eventually blame the SP and the Congress if her candidate loses the election and this will stall a larger alliance.
The BJP, which has an effective strength of 324 MLAs in a house of 402, has fielded eight candidates and is backing the ninth candidate – Anil Agarwal, an independent.
The BJP will have 28 surplus votes after it allots the required 37 votes to each of its eight official candidates.
Three independent members, Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya, Vinod Saroj and Aman Mani Tripathi have announced their support to the BJP and so has Vijay Misra, a legislator from the Nishad Party.
Apart from this SP MLA Nitin Agarwal, who is the son of BJP leader Naresh Agarwal, has declared that he will be voting for the BJP.
The BJP, therefore, has the support of 33 MLAs for the independent candidate who is backed by the party.
“We are in touch with some disgruntled MLAs from the Congress, BSP and SP and our independent candidate will have no problem in sailing through to the victory stand. We have the numbers that are closest to the winning mark”, said a senior BJP functionary.
The BSP, with 19 MLAs, has named Bhimrao Ambedkar as its candidate and is banking on opposition support to ensure his victory. BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari is in jail and has not yet been given permission by the court to attend the assembly and cast his vote which leaves the bSP with an effective strength of 18 MLAs. The Samajwadi Party, on the other hand, is left with only nine surplus votes after allotting 37 votes to Mrs Jaya Bachchan since Mr Nitin Agarwal has already declared his preference for the BJP. The Congress has seven votes and the RLD has one vote and all of this adds up to 35 votes but only if there is no cross voting.
The Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) which has four MLAs and is a BJP ally has already started sending out warning signals but the BJP is confident that its ally will continue to support it in the RS polls.
Om Prakash Rajbhar, Uttar Pradesh minister and SBSP president, has warned that the BJP had not consulted him in candidate selection for the Rajya Sabha polls and he was not willing to be taken for granted.
“Om Prakash Rajbhar is a political bargainer and that is what he is doing at the moment. We are in touch with him and there will be no problem on that score”, the Bharatiya Janata Party functionary said.
