UP Legislative Council Polls: All 13 candidates set to be elected unopposed after nominations found valid

Lucknow: All 13 candidates, including two ministers, who filed nominations for as many vacant Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council seats are set to sail through unopposed as their nomination papers were found valid during scrutiny on Tuesday, an official said. “As many as 13 candidates had filed their nomination papers for 13 seats. The nomination papers of all the candidates were found valid during scrutiny,” returning officer Ashok Kumar Chaubey said. [caption id=“attachment_4435641” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Naresh Uttam. News18[/caption] However, an official declaration of the results will be made after 3 pm on 19 April, the last date of withdrawal of candidature, officials said. While the SP and the BSP have fielded one candidate each, the ruling BJP has put up 10 candidates, including two Uttar Pradesh ministers Mahendra Singh and Mohsin Raza. BJP ally Apna Dal(S) is contesting one seat. The SP has fielded its state unit president Naresh Uttam, while the BSP has nominated BR Ambedkar, who lost in the recent Rajya Sabha polls. The saffron party has also rewarded some turncoats, who had resigned from the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council last year to facilitate the entry of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his two deputies and two other cabinet colleagues into the Upper House of the state Legislature. Apart from the two state ministers, the other BJP candidates are Sarojini Agarwal, Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh, Jaiveer Singh, Vidhyasagar Sonkar, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, Ashok Kataria and Ashok Dhawan. Kataria, Sonkar and Pathak are general secretaries of the state BJP unit, while Dhawan, a former MLC, hails from Varanasi. Apna Dal (Sonelal) has announced party president Ashish Singh Patel as its candidate. In September last year, Adityanath, his two deputies and two ministers were declared elected unopposed to the state Legislative Council. The chief minister had filed his nomination for the seat vacated by then Samajwadi Party (SP) member Yashwant Singh, while Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had filed his papers for the seat held by SP member Bukkal Nawab. Their term was to expire in July 2022. Deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma had filed his nomination for the seat vacated by Ashok Bajpai and Swatantra Dev Singh for the seat vacated by then SP member Sarojni Agarwal. Their term was to expire in January 2021. Raza, the only Muslim minister in the Adityanath cabinet, had filed his nomination for the seat vacated by BSP member Thakur Jaiveer Singh. Bajpai was recently rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh. The Samajwadi Party, headed by Akhilesh Yadav, had initially fielded two candidates, but withdrew one of them, paving the way for Mayawati’s party to bag one seat following her support to the Samajwadi Party in the bypolls to the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats. In the 100-member Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, the BJP has only 13 representatives, the SP 61, the BSP nine, the Congress two, the RLD one and others 12. Two seats are vacant. According to the Election Commission (EC), the tenure of 13 MLCs, including SP national president Akhilesh Yadav and two ministers in the Adityanath government – Mahendra Kumar Singh and Mohsin Raza – will end on 5 May. Of the 13 seats falling vacant, seven were held by the Samajwadi Party, two each by the BJP and the BSP and one by the RLD. The 13th seat, which was held by former Samajwadi Party minister Ambika Chaudhary, fell vacant when he switched over to the BSP.