It was a spectacular sunrise for the BSP and a dismal failure for the BJP in the UP council polls held here on Friday.
It was a spectacular sunrise for the BSP and a dismal failure for the BJP in the UP council polls held here on Friday.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), with an effective strength of 78 MLAs managed to win three seats in the legislative council, getting a total of 91 first preference votes. The party managed to get support from 13 MLAs belonging to other parties.
The BSP candidates who won include Atar Singh Rao, Dinesh Chandra and Suresh Kashyap.
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) could manage to win one seat but lost the second seat to the Congress.
A number of MLAs from other parties voted for the BJP but over confidence and poor floor management of the party led to the defeat of its second candidate Daya Shankar Singh. Incidentally, this is the second time that Daya Shankar Singh has lost the elections to the Vidhan Parishad. The BJP candidate who won his seat is Bhupendra Chaudhary.
BJP spokesman I.P. Singh defended the party and said that they did not indulge in horse-trading to win the election.
Congress’ Deepak Singh won his seat with 26 first preference votes and then second preference votes.
The Samajwadi Party, despite massive cross voting by over a dozen MLAs, managed to win all the eight seats.
Senior SP minister Shivpal Singh Yadav said, “Those who have cross voted will have to pay a price now. We are not going to spare them”. The Vidhan Parishad polls, on Friday, should set alarm bells ringing in all parties since the elections have been marked by heavy cross voting. SP MLA Guddu Pandit and his brother Mukesh Sharma and rebel MLA Rampal Yadav admitted that they had voted against the party. Guddu Pandit and his brother were accompanied by BJP MLA Sangeet Som. BSP MLA Rajesh Tripathi, who had quit the party a day ago, also voted for the BJP along with another BSP MLA Bala Prasad Awasthi. Congress MLA Madhuri Varma went with the Samajwadi Party while two Peace Party MLAs went with the Congress. Sources said that maximum cross voting had taken place in the second preference votes which led to the defeat of the BJP candidate. The success of the BSP in these elections is a clear indication that the party is emerging as the most preferred party for the upcoming assembly polls. Most of the MLAs who have cross voted in favour of the BSP have apparently been assured a ticket for the next elections. The BJP, despite having outside support, has emerged a loser and this could have an adverse impact on Saturday’s Rajya Sabha elections. “Our leaders are over confident about the Modi factor and did not make any effort to muster support for the second candidate. This defeat is obviously going to have a demoralizing impact on the cadres because we had outside support of legislators from other parties but still could not make it”, said a party MLA. In the state assembly of 404 legislators, 402 MLAs cast their votes on Friday. SP MLA Waqar Ahmad Shah who is in coma since the past two years and Congress MLA Kaushl Singh Munna who is hospitalized due to cancer, could not make it.
