All candidates of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress except for one BJP candidate were declared elected in the legislative Council polls on Friday. There were 14 candidates in the fray for the 13 legislative Council seats.
The second candidate of the BJP, Daya Shankar Singh was defeated in a closely contested poll which witnessed rampant cross voting.
The BSP emerged as the biggest beneficiary of cross voting as it polled 13 additional first preference votes. The first preference vote denotes the number of MlA of each party in the Assembly. The BSP has total 80 MlAs amd two have been suspended. Instead of 78 votes as per its strength, the BSP polled 91 or 13 more first preference votes from the MlAs of other parties.
The BJP with 41 MlAs polled total 51 votes or 10 additional first preference votes from members of other parties. Of the 29 Congress MlAs, only 27 voted and the party candidate got only 26 first preference votes. Congress member Kunwar Kaushlendra alias Munna could not cast his vote for medical reasons.
The ruling Samajwadi party suffered a setback as at least its seven MlAs voted against the party. The party however managed to compensate the loss with the support of Independents and 4 RlD MlAs. Against its total 229 MlAs, SP got only 232 first preference votes. Its 8th candidate could win with the support of four RlD MlAs. SP legislator Waqar Ahmed Shah too could not vote as he is in a coma and is hospitalised.
Returning Officer and Principal Secretary (Assembly) Pradeep Kumar Dube said a total of 402 votes were cast and three votes were found to be invalid which made the valid votes stand at 399. With reduced number of total valid votes, the minimum requirement for winning election came down to 28.51 votes from 29 votes and the votes were counted in 12 rounds.
Dube said that three BSP candidates, three of the SP and one of the BJP were declared elected in the first round while the rest were elected after counting the second and the third preference votes. Daya Shankar Singh of the BJP was eliminated in the 12th and the final round of counting.
In the contest for the 13th seat Dayashanker got 20 first preference votes while his nearest Congress rival Deepak Singh got 26 first preference votes. Daya Shanker Singh thanked the voters of other parties for supporting him. He had earlier contested the Council polls in 2015 but lost after polling only 17 votes. However this time, he managed 13 additional votes from other parties.
Among the winners are eight SP candidates, three of BSP and one each of BJP and Congress.
The winning candidates are --Yashwant Singh, Bukkal Nawab, Ramsunder Das Nishad, Balram Yadav, Jagjivan Prasad, Shatrudh Prakash, Kamlesh Pathak and Ranvijay Singh (all of SP), Atar Singh Rao, Dinesh Chandra and Suresh Kashyap (BSP), Bhupendra Choudhury of the BJP and Deepak Singh of the Congress.