LUCKNOW: RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury and Congress leader Kapil Sibal may emerge as the members fielded by Samajwadi Party to Rajya Sabha. While the process of filing nomination took off on Tuesday, the parties are still finalising their candidates. Of the 57 seats going to polls on June 10, Uttar Pradesh will send 11 members to the upper house.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and SP are sure to win at least seven and three seats, respectively. However, for 11th seat, there could be a contest as the BJP, with 273 members in Assembly, is short of 15 votes while SP, with 125 MLAs, would need 20 more votes to win an added seat. So, this may bring second preference vote into play, as each member will need 36.63 votes to get elected.
As per sources, of the three seats which SP is sure to win, one each may be given to Chaudhury and Sibal. The 11 seats are currently represented by BJP (5), SP (3), BSP (2) and Congress (1). If Chaudhury makes it to RS, he will return to Parliament after eight years as he was Mathura MP from 2009-2014.
Sibal, who is completing his RS term in July, was then elected with SP’s support. He also represented Azam Khan in Supreme Court and helped him secure interim bail, and helped Akhilesh retain the party’s bicycle symbol in 2017 after a Yadav family feud. The SP now seems to be seeking to reciprocate for his help. However, no official word is out yet. “The party has not decided on the candidates,” national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary said.