LUCKNOW: Even after the conclusion of Assembly elections, UP continues to be in the poll mode as the stage now set for the upcoming legislative council elections on 36 seats in April.
Another 13 seats of the Council will go to the polls in July besides elections to 11 Rajya Sabha seats.
The first referendum on the performance of the second term of the BJP government will also be seen during the prestigious urban local body polls due in November-December this year.
For over 36 seats of the legislative council which had fallen vacant in March, the election will take place on April 9. Initially, the state election commission had announced the schedule for voting to take place in two phases on March 3 and March 7 coupled with the announcement of results on March 12, but in the wake of the ongoing assembly polls, the poll panel decided to defer the council polls by a month.
Now, under the revised schedule, the voting for 36 council seats will take place in a single phase on April 9 and the results will be announced on April 12. The nomination process took off on Tuesday. As almost all the UP districts are part of the election, the model code of conduct will be in force across the state till the council elections.
For the ruling BJP, which came back to power with a two-thirds majority in the just-concluded assembly elections, it will be an opportunity to make itself the single-largest party in the House, and thereby enjoy a majority in both the Houses of UP Legislature. According to the official website, of the 100-member UP Legislative Council, currently, the BJP has 35 MLCs, SP has 17 and the BSP has four MLCs. The Congress, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and NISHAD party have one member each in the UP Legislative Council.
The Teachers' group has 2 MLCs, while the Independent group has 2 MLCs. As many as 37 seats are vacant at present. Besides the 36 seats which will go to the poll on April 9, one more seat got vacant due to the demise of the leader of opposition in Upper house Ahmad Hassan after a prolonged illness recently.
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a number of SP MLCs had also joined the BJP. They included Narendra Singh Bhati, Shatrudra Prakash, Rama Niranjan, Ravishankar Singh Pappu, CP Chandra, Ghanshyam Lodhi, Shailendra Pratap Singh, and Ramesh Mishra.
Three new members will be nominated to the state council on the recommendation of the state government in place of Balwant Singh Ramuwalia, Zahid Hassan, and Madhukar Jaitley who would retire under the nominated quota on April 28. Similarly, three more members including Dr Rajpal Kashyap, Arvind Kumar Singh, and Dr Sanjay Lather, all of SP, will be replaced by the new members nominated by the Governor on the recommendation of the state government on May 26.
Moreover, 13 members of the state council including UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Keshav Prasad Maurya, Jagjeevan Prasad, Balram Yadav, Dr Kamal Kumar, Ranvijay Singh, Ram Sinderdas Nishad, Shatrudra Prakash, Atar Singh Rao, Dinesh Chandra, Suresh Kumar Kashyap, Deepak Singh and Bhupendra Singh, will complete their term on July 6, this year. This will necessitate the election of 13 Council seats.
However, the strength of the Congress party will be down to zero as its lone member Deepak Singh will complete his term along with 13 others in July. Moreover, with the Congress standing decimated with just two MLAs in Assembly, it will not be in a position to get even one of its members either elected or nominated to Council.
Similarly, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has been reduced to just one MLA in UP Assembly, would come down with just one member in Council as well as three of the four of its council members will retire on July 6. The lone BSP member BR Ambedkar's term will be complete in May 2024. After May 2024, BSP would have no presence in Council.
On the other, by this year-end, the urban local body polls will be for the mayors and corporators of 17 Municipal Corporations, 199 Municipal Councils, and 438 Nagar Panchayats (blocks).