NEW DELHI: As lawmakers across 16 states vote to elect Rajya Sabha members, all eyes are on Uttar Pradesh where BJP, confident of securing victory on eight seats in the state, will be fighting a close battle with its opponents to clinch the ninth Rajya Sabha seat.
BJP and its allies hold an upper hand in the state with 324 members (311 BJP + 13 allies) in the legislative assembly and are poised to win eight seats with the support of 296 MLAs (37*8). (In UP, a candidate needs the support of 37 MLAs to secure his entry into the Upper House.)
For the remaining two seats,
Samajwadi Party (
SP) and
Bahujan Samaj Party (
BSP) have fielded one candidate each — Jaya Bachchan and Bhim Rao Ambedkar, respectively.
While SP with 47 MLAs is confident of sending one MP to the Upper House, the BSP, with 19 MLAs, will need 18 more votes to prevent the ninth seat from going into the hands of BJP.
With the current numbers in view, BSP's Mayawati will be once again looking to forge an alliance with foe-turned-friend SP, with a surplus of ten votes, and the Indian National Congress, with 17 seats, to secure the sought-after ninth seat.
For the uninitiated, the BSP-SP alliance had torpedoed into the BJP stronghold Gorakhpur and clinched the former bastion of UP chief minister Adityanath in the by-elections, earlier this month.
BJP on the other hand, with a surplus of 28 votes, will need nine more votes. The saffron party will be heavily banking on independent candidates and cross-over votes to include one more seat to its tally of eight.
So far, there are indications that BSP's Anil Singh, NISHAD party's Vijay Sharma, SP's Nitin Agarwal may vote in favour of the saffron party, boosting its chances of winning the ninth seat.
