After much political drama between the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, the Election Commission declared 10 candidates elected unopposed in the biennial Rajya Sabha poll in Uttar Pradesh.
The announcement was made by the returning officer after expiry of the last date for withdrawal of nomination.
Eight Bharatiya Janata Party candidates who were elected were Union minister of state Hardeep Puri, party general secretary Arun Singh, senior leader Haridwar Dubey, former DGP Brij Lal, Neeraj Shekhar, Geeta Shakya, BL Verma and Seema Dwivedi.
SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav and BSP’s Ramjee Gautam were also elected.
With this, the BJP wrested three seats from the SP and one each from the BSP and the Congress.
During scrutiny on October 29, there was a political drama after five BSP MLAs who had proposed Ramjee Gautam withdrew and revolted against the party brass and even met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Even after the revolt, BSP candidate Ramjee Gautam’s nomination was found to be in order. Samajwadi Party-backed independent candidate Prakash Bajaj’s nomination was, however, rejected over anomaly in the name of his proposer.
Five dissident BSP MLAs, Aslam Chaudhary, Aslam Rainee, Mujtaba Siddique, Hakim Lal Bind and Govind Jatav along with two other MLAs were suspended by the BSP brass for anti-party activities.
Rajya Sabha members whose term would end on November 25, 2020, are Union minister and BJP member Hardeep Singh Puri, BJP general secretary Arun Singh, BJP’s Neeraj Shekhar, SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav, Ravi Prakash Verma, Dr Chandrapal Singh Yadav and Javed Ali Khan, BSP’s Veer Singh and Rajaram and Congress member PL Punia.