UP Legislative Council polls: Ten BJP, two SP candidates set to get elected unopposed to Upper House

Lucknow: Decks have been cleared for the unopposed election of 12 candidates, including 10 from the BJP, to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council with the nomination paper of an Independent nominee being rejected during scrutiny of papers on Tuesday. The nomination papers of Independent Mahesh Chandra Sharma, who filed his papers on Monday, was rejected during scrutiny of papers, Returning Officer BB Dubey said. With this, there are 12 candidates left for as many seats for the biennial election, he said. Sharma’s paper was rejected as it did not have proposers and also the receipt of payment of fees, Dubey said. Ten candidates of the BJP and two of the Samajwadi Party are now poised to get elected to the Upper House unopposed. A formal announcement in this regard would be made on Thursday afternoon if there is no withdrawal of nomination, Dubey said. As per the schedule for the election, names can be withdrawn till 21 January. The polling was scheduled to take place on 28 January and the counting soon after the completion of the polls. On the last date of filing of nomination papers on Monday, BJP candidates including Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma and former IAS AK Sharma had filed their papers in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and senior ministers. Others who filed their nominations include state unit BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh, Lakshman Prasad Acharya, Kunwar Manvendra Singh, Govind Narayan Shukla, Salil Bishnoi, Ashwani Tyagi, Dharamveer Prajapati, and Surendra Chaudhary. Last week, Samajwadi Party candidates Ahmed Hasan and Rajendra Chaudhary had filed their papers in the presence of party president Akhilesh Yadav. Of the 12 MLCs whose tenure is expiring, six are from the Samajwadi Party. They include Ramesh Yadav, Ahmed Hasan, Ashu Malik, Sahab Singh Saini, Ramjatan Rajbhar, and Virendra Singh. Those from the BJP are Deputy Chief Minister Sharma, state unit president Swatantra Dev Singh and Laxman Acharya. The tenure of BSP’s Pradeep Jatav and Dharamveer Ashok is also coming to an end. The term of Naseemudin Siddiqui, who left the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and joined the Congress, is also coming to an end.