Yadav family feud may come in handy for BJP in RS polls

Shivpal Yadav camp in the Samajwadi Party (SP) may throw a spanner in the opposition unity in Rajya Sabha biennial elections if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decides to field an extra candidate.

A leader close to Shivpal Yadav said, “The Shivpal camp is likely to go against Akhilesh’s wishes just the way it did in the presidential election. We expect at least seven cross-voting in BJP’s favour.”

Shivpal Yadav was not available for comment on Rajya Sabha election scenario.

Some leaders close to Shivpal Yadav, uncle of SP president Akhilesh Yadav, had voted for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Ramnath Kovind in the presidential election instead of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate Meira Kumar.

Biennial elections for 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh, besides 49 from other states, will be held on March 23.

By way of its strength in Vidhan Sabha, the BJP can have clear victory on eight seats and SP on one seat. If the BJP fields a tenth candidate, the joint opposition candidate may face a tough contest as each vote will be crucial.

As 37 votes are required for the election of a candidate, SP will have 10 residual votes after ensuring a Rajya Sabha seat for one of its candidates.

This combined with 19 seats of the Bahujan Samaj Party, 7 of Congress and one each of Rashtriya Lok Dal and NISHAD Party, the total goes to 38.

The residual votes of BJP and its allies will be 28. There are three independent votes.

This will make the contest fierce as any cross-voting from the opposition camp may ensure the victory of BJP’s “extra candidate”.

The Shivpal Yadav camp had also paved the way for the election of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and other ministers to Vidhan Parishad as SP MLCs from Shivpal camp had resigned from their membership. The prominent ones were Bukkal Nawab, Yashwant Singh and Sarojini Agarwal. All of them are now in BJP.

MLAs Vijay Mishra and Aman Mani Tripathi, who had won the 2017 assembly elections as independent after Akhilesh Yadav had denied tickets to them, are allegedly in touch with Shivpal. Both of them had announced that they had voted for Kovind in presidential polls.

“Before the Rajya Sabha elections, Shivpal Yadav is going to Mauritius as chairman of the Indo-Mauritius Socialist Council to attend some events. Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth will be present there. Shivpal is likely to meet President Ramnath Kovind at some of the events,” said Deepak Mishra, who is a part of Shivpal’s three-member delegation to Mauritius.

Shivpal and Akhilesh have a strained relationship since the Yadav family feud began in August 2016 over the control of the party. Eventually, Akhilesh won the battle for supremacy.