LUCKNOW: After drawing a blank in the just-concluded Legislative Council elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party is facing the likelihood of losing the post of Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the
Upper House.
After May 28 the number of SP MLCs will come down to 11 from the present 17 as six of its sitting members will be retiring after completion of their terms.
On April 28, three SP MLCs — Balwant Singh Ramuwalia, Wasim Barelvi and Madhukar Jaitley — will complete their tenure. This will be followed by the retirement of three more SP MLCs — Rajpal Kashyap, Arvind Kumar and Sanjay Lather — on May 26. Lather is the current Leader of the Opposition.
The Leader of the Opposition is assigned to a member from the largest opposition party in the House, but the party needs to have at least 10 per cent seats of the total strength of the House. On these six seats, the BJP will most likely get its candidates nominated.
On July 6, half a dozen of the 11 remaining SP members will retire.
Those who term ends in July are Jagjeevan Prasad, Kamlesh Kumar Pathak, Ranvijay Singh, Shatrudh Prakash (now in BJP), Balram Yadav and Ran Sunder Das Nishad.
In such a scenario, the SP will be left with just five members — Naresh Uttam Patel, Rajendra Chaudhury, Ashutosh Sinha, Dr Maan Singh Yadav, and Lal Bihari Yadav.
In all, 13 seats of the Assembly quota will be vacated in July and the election to those seats is likely to be held soon. For each seat, votes of 31 MLAs are required.
SP and its allies have 125 members in the Assembly. As per its strength, SP can win maximum four seats and its tally will go up to nine.
Similarly, the BSP, which has four members, will be left with just one seat while the Congress will not be there at all.
Moreover, three seats which got vacated last year will in all probability be filled by the BJP. Thus, the ruling party is likely to touch the figure of 80 in the Council by July.