The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) , which got a thumping majority in the 2022 assembly elections, has now set its eyes to get a majority in the Upper House of the legislature as well as it declared names of its candidates for the 30 constituencies out of 36 that will go to polls on April 9.
This edition of election to the Legislative Council seats is through local bodies.
“In this election the party has given preference to party workers who have worked tirelessly for the welfare of the party. The list includes many district presidents and office-bearers,” a source in the party said.
The party has fielded Ashish Yadav, son of former chairman of Vidhan Parishad Ramesh Yadav from Muzaffarnagar and has given ticket to Vandana Verma, wife of Mudit Verma who is younger brother of former cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh.
The BJP has fielded Gorakhpur region in-charge and BJP state general secretary Anoop Gupta from Lakhimpur Kheri and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha state president Pranshu Dutt Dwivedi from Etawah-Farrukhabad seat. It has made Ramchandra Pradhan as its candidate for Lucknow-Unnao Legislative Council seat and Pawan Singh Chauhan from Sitapur. At present, Chauhan is the state co-convener of BJP's educational institution cell.
BJP has made Ashok Agrawal, who is a three-time block pramukh of Kachhona's development block in Hardoi, as its candidate from Hardoi. Mahoba's BJP district president Jitendra Singh Sengar has been declared as the candidate for Banda-Hamirpur council seat.
The party has declared its old worker Vijay Shivhare as its candidate from Agra-Firozabad. He is currently a state minister. Prior to this, he was city president when the BJP got a massive victory during the 2017 assembly elections and won all the seats in Agra.
The BJP has made a turncoat, Narendra Singh Bhati, who was a minister during the SP regime, as its candidate from Gautam Buddha Nagar-Bulandshahr seat. Former MP Hari Om Pandey is party candidate from Ayodhya-Ambedkarnagar. Pandey had won the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Ambedkar Nagar on BJP ticket but lost the seat in 2019.
Other candidates are: Satyapal Saini from Moradabad-Bijnor local authority area, Kunwar Maharaj Singh from Rampur-Bareilly, Vagish Pathak from Budaun, Dr Sudhir Gupta from Pilibhit-Shahjahanpur, Dinesh Pratap Singh from Rae Bareli, Hari Pratap Singh from Pratapgarh, Angad Kumar Singh from Barabanki, Dr Pragya Tripathi from Bahraich, Awadhesh Singh Manju from Gonda, CP Chand from Gorakhpur-Maharajganj, Ratanpal Singh from Deoria, Arun Kumar Yadav from Azamgarh-Mau, Ravi Shankar Singh Pappu from Ballia, Chanchal Singh from Ghazipur, KP Srivastava from Prayagraj, Jitendra Singh Sengar from Banda-Hamirpur, Rama Niranjan from Jhansi-Lalitpur-Jalaun, Om Prakash Singh from Mainpuri, Ashish Yadav Ashu from Mathura-Etah, Rishipal Singh from Aligarh, Dharmendra Bharadwaj from Meerut-Ghaziabad and Vandana Mudit Verma from Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur.
Members are elected to the legislative council for six years. The council has 100 seats in UP. Out of this, 36 members are elected by the representatives of local bodies and 16 from teachers’ constituencies. Experts from 10 different fields are nominated by the Governor to the Upper House. Of the remaining 38 seats, the members of the legislative assembly elect MLCs.