After fierce UP Assembly polls, the BJP and its key rival Samajwadi Party will be pitted against each other again for the April 9 elections for the 36 seats of the States legislative council.
The Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party have not fielded any candidate in the biennial legislative council polls, making it a straight fight between the SP and the BJP. There are, however, some independent candidates in the fray. The filing of nomination papers for the first phase of elections ended Monday while that for the second phase will end on Tuesday.Voting for both phases will take place on April 9, the state election office said.
The counting of votes will take place on April 12.
The Samajwadi Party will make all efforts to retain its majority in the 100-member Upper House while the BJP will go all out to have its majority in the legislative council too. The BJP announced the names of six more candidates on Monday for the elections, for which the party had announced 30 candidates earlier. Amid the poll process, the BJP's ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) refuted speculation that it too wanted to contest the poll, for which it was in talks with the BJP. "We are not contesting the biennial elections for the legislative council in UP," Apna Dal (S) MLC Ashish Patel told PTI.
Of the 36 candidates fielded by the BJP, five are former Samajwadi Party leaders, who joined the saffron camp on the eve of the February-March state polls.
They are -- Shailendra Pratap Singh from Sultanpur local authority constituency, C P Chand from the Gorakhpur-Maharajganj local authorities, Ravishankar Singh 'Pappu' from Ballia local authorities, Rama Niranjan from Jhansi-Jalaun-Lalitpur local authorities and Narendra Bhati from Bulandshahr local authorities.
Ravishankar Singh Pappu is the grandson of former Prime Minister Chandrasekhar. Samajwadi Party had declared its candidates for the biennial elections to the UP Legislative Council on Sunday.
Barring the Meerut-Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr seats, which have been left for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal, the SP has declared its candidates on all the remaining 34 seats, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said.
Among those given tickets included Dr Kafeel Khan from Deoria, Mashkoor Ahmad from Rampur-Bareilly, sitting MLCs Sunil Kumar Sajan, Rajesh Kumar and Udayveer Singh from Lucknow-Unnao, Barabaki, and Mathura-Etah-Mainpuri seats respectively. Congress MLC Deepak Singh on Monday told PTI, "The Congress party has decided not to field any candidate in the UP Legislative Council polls.