The contest for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh has begun on March 23. BJP is virtually assured of victory for eight seats of its candidates from the state, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The party has put up its ninth candidate (a businessman Anil Agarwal) to stand against the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
The party has 28 extra votes to aim for a ninth seat, and needs nine more to win the polls. The contest is for 11 candidates for 10 seats and 37 first preference votes are needed for each of the seat.
Following a bypoll defeat by the BSP and Samajwadi Party in two of its key parliamentary seats BJP is geared up to gain 8 out of 10 states. Finance Minister Jaitley and BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao are among the BJP candidates who are guaranteed to win. It is going to be tough fight for the 10th seat between Mayawati and BJP’s ninth candidate Agarwal.
The Samajwadi Party has fielded Jaya Bachchan in the one seat and it has 47 lawmakers who are enough to win that one seat. It is going to be a bit difficult for Mayawati’s single candidate to win as she needs 19 votes to win one seat. Mayawati has Samajwadi’s eight, Congress’s seven and another vote from Rashtriya Lok Dal, but still party will need three more votes.
Congress lawmaker Aradhana Mishra has said that the party has decided that there will be no cross-voting. This will strengthen the whole opposition.
The BJP candidates in the prestige battle are Minister Jaitley, Ashok Bajpai, Sakal Deep Rajbhar, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Kanta Kardam, Anil Jain, Harnath Singh Yadav, Rao and ninth candidate Agarwal.
