All the six candidates of the ruling Samajwadi Party are set to file their papers on the first day of filing of nominations, on Monday, for the upcoming Rajya Sabha biennial polls in Uttar Pradesh but surprisingly, the other political parties have not yet finalised their candidates.
Nominations for the biennial election for 10 Rajya Sabha seats from UP will begin from Monday. November 10 is the last date for filing the nominations. Scrutiny of the papers will be done on the next day and candidates can withdraw their nominations till November 13. The polling will be held on November 20 and counting of votes will take place the same day.
Sources in the Samajwadi Party say that senior Minister Mohammad Azam Khan’s wife Tanzeen Fatima will be filing nomination along with five others. She had offered to forego the ticket if there was a more deserving candidate.
The other SP candidates are Ram Gopal Yadav, Neeraj Shekhar, Chandrapal Singh Yadav, Ravi Prakash Verma, and Javed Ali Khan.
The party has rejected the request of expelled leader Amar Singh to repeat him this time for the Rajya Sabha.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which was routed in the recent lok Sabha elections and did not contest in the Assembly bypolls, can send two candidates to the Rajya Sabha in this biennial election.
Sources in the party said that Mayawati would finalise the candidates on November 7.
It is ironical that six BSP candidates will be retiring on November 25 this year. Among them are Brijesh Pathak, Rajaram and Akhilesh Das.
“Mayawati has called a meeting on November 7 and will decide the candidate the same day,” a source in the BSP told The Pioneer on Sunday.
The BJP, which can send one MP to the Rajya Sabha on the basis of its strength in the Vidhan Sabha, is yet to finalise the name of its candidate.
The name of old Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh spokesman-turned BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav is doing the rounds. Present Rajya Sabha member Kusum Rai, whose term will expire on November 25, is another contender for the party ticket.
Sources said the names of BJP ex-president Rajnath Singh’s close confidant and national spokesperson of the party, Sudhanshu Trivedi, and lucknow Mayor and party national vice-president Dinesh Sharma are also being discussed.
For the BJP, sending Sharma to the Rajya Sabha would mean facing mayoral election, as he is also in-charge of Gujarat.
Rashtriya lok Dal president Ajit Singh could be a consensus candidate of the RlD-Congress combine even though the name of former Union minister Kapil Sibal is being discussed in political circles.