Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh to set stage for NDA vs INDIA contest before Lok Sabha faceoff

The February 27 biennial election to 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh has set the stage for an interesting contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Samajwadi Party-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) before the Lok Sabha election.
It remains to be seen whether the BJP will repeat the 2018 biennial election feat to retain nine seats from the state in the Rajya Sabha or will the SP be able to increase its strength by countering the ruling party’s game plan.
Among the 10 Rajya Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh retiring in April, nine belong to the Bharatiya Janata Party and one to the Samajwadi Party.
In 2018, when Rajya Sabha polls were held for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had purportedly engineered cross-voting by opposition MLAs.
Back then, the BJP had 312 members in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly. Its allies, the Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), had nine and four MLAs, respectively. Bahujan Samaj Party nominee Bhimrao Ambedkar lost the election while the BJP’s ninth candidate Anil Agarwal won.
The scenario has changed after the 2022 assembly election as the SP’s tally in the Uttar Pradesh assembly has increased from 47 MLAs (2017) to 108 MLAs currently.
The strength of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an INDIA bloc member, has also increased from a single MLA to nine. The Congress’s numbers have come down from seven to two MLAs. In all, the INDIA bloc has 119 MLAs in Uttar Pradesh.
As a candidate requires 37 first-preference votes to secure a seat in the Rajya Sabha, the INDIA bloc is in a comfortable position to send three members to the Upper House of Parliament.
In the NDA camp, the the BJP has 252 MLAs, Apna Dal (S) 13, and the NISHAD party and the SBSP six each. With a strength of 277 MLAs, the NDA is in position to send seven candidates to the Rajya Sabha. As it will be left with 18 extra votes, even if two votes of the Jansatta Dal Loktantrik and a single BSP vote are combined, the NDA will not be in position to bag additional seats. Similarly, the INDIA bloc’s eight extra votes will not be enough to get a fourth seat.
The Election Commission of India on Monday announced the schedule for the biennial election to fill 56 Rajya Sabha seats in 15 states, including 10 in Uttar Pradesh.
The election notification will be issued on February 8. The last date for the filing of the nomination is February 15 and the last date for their withdrawal is February 20. Polling will be held on February 27 and the results announced the same day.
Hence, on February 20, it will become clear if the BJP is working to repeat the 2018 game plan or will it be content by fielding seven candidates.
“The INDIA bloc will maintain a watch on activities of the rival camp as well as on alliance MLAs to check cross-voting in the biennial election, (which) will (otherwise) send a wrong message of disunity in the alliance before the Lok Sabha election,” said a Samajwadi Party leader.
The nine BJP members set to retire in April are Ashok Bajpai, Anil Jain, Anil Agarwal, Kanta Kardam, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, GVL Narasimha Rao, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Harnath Singh Yadav and Vijay Pal Tomar. Jaya Bachchan will be the lone SP member retiring from the Rajya Sabha.
After announcement of the Rajya Sabha poll date, intense lobbying has started in both camps for candidature.