The BJP spoiled the coming together of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress, by fielding its additional candidate in Anil Agarwal for the biennial elections of Rajya Sabha on Monday. Polling for 10 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on March 23.
The BJP with 311 MlAs and 13 MlAs of its allies Apna Dal and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party has total 324 votes. After electing eight candidates requiring 37 votes each, the party would have about 28 votes as spare, which would go in favour of its ninth candidate Anil Agarwal. The decision came at the last moment as the BJP had announced only eight candidates a day before. Even three independent MlAs are set to vote for BJP candidates.
Much to the discomfiture of the SP-BSP-Congress tie up, SP Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Agarwal along with his SP MlA son Nitin Agarwal joined BJP, thus reducing the number of votes in favour of BSP candidate banking on support of Congress and surplus votes of Samajwadi Party. After joining the BJP, Naresh Agarwal said that his son would vote in favour of BJP candidates in Rajya Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party, which so far had 47 MlAs has fielded Jaya Bachchan as its candidate and promised to shift its surplus votes to the BSP. But with its legislator Nitin Agarwal joining the BJP, the SP would now be one vote short. Thus, after electing Bachchan, the SP would have only nine spare votes to shift in favour of the BSP candidate.
Even after Congress offering its support of 7 MlAs to the BSP candidate, BSP which has 19 MlAs of its own and is hoping to get support of nine SP MlAs would still be short of numbers. “Our nine candidates have filed their complete. Those with hardly any numbers fielded their candidate and hence it was decided to field nine candidates as we have votes of 28 additional MlAs and we believe that all those who believe in democracy would support us and ensure victory of our nine candidates,” said state BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey after Anil Agarwal filed his nomination. Agarwal is a businessman from Meerut.
On Monday the last day of filing nominations 11 candidates of the BJP filed their papers for total 10 seats.
The BJP had officially announced eight candidates, who filed their papers on the last day on Monday. The candidates are Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley, former SP MlC Ashok Vajpayee, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, Kanta Kardam, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Dr Anil Jain, GVl Narsimha Rao, Harnath Singh Yadav. Two other BJP-supported candidates are former BJP MlA from Kanpur, Salil Bishnoi and state BJP general secretary Vidyasagar Sonkar of Jaunpur. BJP sources said that two candidates would withdraw their nominations.
Besides the BJP, the lone BSP candidate B R Ambedkar, who has already filed his nomination, submitted a second set of nomination supported by Samajwadi Party and Congress MlAs on Monday. Bollywood actor Jaya Bachhan has already filed her nomination as SP candidate on Friday last.